Is There Still Life in the Pessimist Case? Consumption during the Industrial Revolution, 1790-1850

Joel Mokyr*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

80 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent research on the standard-of-living controversy has argued that a marked improvement in the economic well-being of British workers began shortly after 1815 and continued unabated until 1850. I test that new optimism by generating a synthetic annual “standard-of-living variable” for the period 1790 to 1850. The variable is based on estimating a relation between living standards and the consumption of some key commodities for 1855 to 1900 and then using that relation to “retrocast” living standards for 1790 to 1850. The results strongly suggest that the hypothesis of no or little improvement cannot be rejected.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)69-92
Number of pages24
JournalJournal of Economic History
Volume48
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1988
Externally publishedYes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Is There Still Life in the Pessimist Case? Consumption during the Industrial Revolution, 1790-1850'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this