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The purpose of this paper is to investigate appropriate methods of modelling the business cycle theory of trade union growth, and to develop and estimate a specification of the business cycle model. In so doing, the paper draws on the important pioneering work of Bain and Elsheikh (1976) for the United Kingdom. (The results of extension of the Bain and Elsheikh model to 1980 are shown in Appendix A.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Clark's claims about the scale of English agricultural output from the 1200s to the 1860s flout historical and geographical reality. His income‐based estimates start with the daily real wages of adult males and assume that days worked per year were constant. Those advanced in British economic growth make no such assumption and instead are built up from the output side. They correlate better with population trends and are consistent with an economy slowly growing and becoming richer. Clark's denial that such growth occurred, his assertion that substantially more land must have been under arable cultivation, his belief that conditions of full employment invariably prevailed in the countryside at harvest time, his concern that the wage bill would have exceeded the value of output in British economic growth, his refusal to consider the possibility that the working year was of variable length, and his assertion that output per acre must have been equalized across arable and pasture are all shown to be figments of his ‘Malthus delusion’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of several articles for the period 400-1100 AD is presented including one by Naismith on currency, link social and economic developments among the English, one by Lane on urban life at Wroxeter into the 6th and 7th centuries, and one by Lavelle on the policy of King Eadwig.

The rapid rise of England's colonial commerce in the late seventeenth century expanded the nation's resource base, stimulated efficiency improvements across the economy, and was important for long-term growth. However, close examination of the interests at play in England's Atlantic world does not support the Whiggish view that the Glorious Revolution played a benign role in this story. In the decades after the Restoration, the cases of the Royal African Company and the Spanish slave trade in Jamaica are used to show that the competition between Crown and Parliament for control of regulation constrained interest groups on either side in their efforts to capture the profits of empire. Stuart 'tyranny' was not able to damage growth and relatively competitive (and peaceful) conditions underpinned very rapid increases in colonial output and trade. The resolution of the rules of the Atlantic game in 1689 allowed a consolidated state better to manipulate and manage the imperial economy in its own interests. More secure rent-seeking enterprises and expensive wars damaged growth and European rivals began a process of catch-up. The Glorious Revolution was not sufficient to permanently halt economic development but it was sufficient to slow progress towards industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an examination of the patterns and motivations behind parish apprenticeship in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. It stresses continuity in outlook from parish officials binding children, which involved placements in both the traditional and industrializing sectors of the economy. Evidence on the ages, employment types, and locations of 3,285 pauper apprentices bound from different parts of London between 1767 and 1833 indicates a variety of local patterns. The analysis reveals a pattern of youthful age at binding, a range of employment experiences, and parish-specific links to particular trades and manufactures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article explores the historical origins of the depressed areas in Great Britain before 1914. The depressed areas are those regions of Britain whose persistent economic difficulties have, for most of this century, constituted the regional problem. This is examined through an analysis of alternative sources of early regional unemployment statistics. Patterns of unemployment in the pre-1914 period are then related to census-derived statistics of regional growth and employment structure. Before 1914, the north was the region of high growth, based on the prosperity of the export-oriented industries created by the industrial revolution, especially engineering, shipbuilding, textiles and mining. Unemployment was primarily a problem of the south, with its stagnant agricultural sector and of London, where the old handicraft industries were making their final stand. Following the war, shifts in world trade caused a sudden drop in export demand, mainly affecting the staple industries of the north. This shift in trade was a clear exogenous shock to the British regional economic system, causing a sudden drop in demand for labour in previously prosperous areas and a reversal in the pre-war pattern of unemployment.

The article discusses the total factor productivity growth in Great Britain after 1870. The confusion over which industries witnessed entrepreneurial shortcomings remained until the use by new economic historians of geometric and arithmetic total factor productivity indexes to test directly Aldcroft's hypothesis that Britain's rate of technical progress was inferior to that of America or Germany. Productivity indexes measure output per unit input. Unlike partial productivity indexes, principally the output-labor ratio, total factor productivity indexes measure the rate of growth of output not accounted for by the growth of all factor inputs. After subtracting the rate of growth of weighted factor inputs from the rate of growth of output, what is left unexplained is labelled technical change or productivity. In this case, the index is a residual and, more properly, has been called a measure of our ignorance. By comparing total factor productivity growth in Britain after 1870 with best practice American efficiency growth, both lagging British productivity and the entrepreneurial failure thesis were subjected to an unambiguous test.

The article outlines a transition from active intervention to a more passive response by the British Government in its grain market of the seventeenth century. It is often easier to assess the reasons for government action than for government inaction, since action is frequently accompanied by justifications whilst inaction is cloaked in documentary silence. Much has always had to be inferred, but some inferences are perhaps more soundly based than others. It is wrong to think that the Privy Council was losing faith in intervention before the end of the sixteenth century; the early 1630s saw the most intensive (and last) attempt to intervene comprehensively. Nor, possibly, can one argue that the subsequent disappearance of the old-style dearth program can be explained in terms of the disappearance of the Privy Council. An opportunity for the latter to intervene was presented in 1637/8, before its abolition, and small executive councils never totally disappeared. There is not very convincing evidence for the view that changes in London's needs and role influenced directly the timing of the policy changes.

The article measures the effect of public finance during the period 1793-1815 on the rate and direction of Great Britain's economic development. It explores the country's involvement in war during the period. One aspect of the war which has intermittently attracted economists" attention from the time of the "bullionist" controversy is the effect of the expedients that were adopted in the field of public finance. The article describes the sources of data which economic historian can use to be able to fairly measure the effect of the country's finance on the rate and direction of economic growth. An analysis on the economic indicators during the period is presented.

While it is frequently asserted that British industry has earned an inadequate return on investment, there has been little agreement among economists as to what exactly this rate has been in recent years. This note provides striking new evidence that the profitability of British industry is currently much lower than anyone had previously supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]