IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/22551.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Time is money: a re-assessment of the passenger social savings from Victorian British railways

Author

Listed:
  • Leunig, Tim

Abstract

This paper reassesses and extends Hawke’s passenger railway social savings for England and Wales. Better estimates of coach costs and evidence that third class passengers would otherwise have walked reduce Hawke’s social savings by two-thirds. We calculate railway speeds, and the amount and value of time saved by railways. Initially small, time savings was three times fare savings by 1912, when total railway passenger social savings exceeded 13% of GDP. The transition from railways saving money to saving time came when railway technology stopped simply fulfilling existing demand more cheaply (travel for the affluent) and became a new good (travel for the masses).

Suggested Citation

  • Leunig, Tim, 2005. "Time is money: a re-assessment of the passenger social savings from Victorian British railways," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 22551, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:22551
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22551/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William D. Nordhaus, 2004. "Schumpeterian Profits in the American Economy: Theory and Measurement," NBER Working Papers 10433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Summerhill, William R., 2005. "Big Social Savings in a Small Laggard Economy: Railroad-Led Growth in Brazil," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(1), pages 72-102, March.
    3. Nicholas Crafts & Abay Mulatu, 2005. "What explains the location of industry in Britain, 1871–1931?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 499-518, August.
    4. Bogart, Dan, 2005. "Turnpike trusts and the transportation revolution in 18th century England," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 479-508, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ehl:wpaper:22551 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Dan Bogart & Latika Chaudhary & Alfonso Herranz‐Loncán, 2024. "The growth contribution of colonial Indian railways in comparative perspective," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1509-1534, November.
    3. Tim Leunig, 2011. "Cart or Horse: Transport and Economic Growth," International Transport Forum Discussion Papers 2011/4, OECD Publishing.
    4. Berger, Thor, 2019. "Railroads and Rural Industrialization: evidence from a Historical Policy Experiment," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Martin Henning & Hans Westlund & Kerstin Enflo, 2023. "Urban–rural population changes and spatial inequalities in Sweden," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 878-892, May.
    6. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    7. Darius Lakdawalla & Neeraj Sood, 2007. "The Welfare Effects of Public Drug Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13501, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Magnus Henrekson & Anders Kärnä & Tino Sanandaji, 2022. "Schumpeterian entrepreneurship: coveted by policymakers but impervious to top-down policymaking," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 867-890, July.
    9. Colin Pooley, 2016. "Mobility, Transport and Social Inclusion: Lessons from History," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(3), pages 100-109.
    10. Reyer Gerlagh, Nicole A. Mathys and Thomas O. Michielsen, 2015. "Energy Abundance, Trade and Specialization," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    11. Pierre M. Picard & Dao‐Zhi Zeng, 2010. "A Harmonization Of First And Second Natures," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 973-994, December.
    12. Magnus Henrekson & Tino Sanandaji, 2011. "Entrepreneurship and the theory of taxation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 167-185, September.
    13. Dan Bogart & Gary Richardson, 2011. "Property Rights and Parliament in Industrializing Britain," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 241-274.
    14. Abay Mulatu & Ada Wossink, 2014. "Environmental Regulation and Location of Industrialized Agricultural Production in Europe," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(3), pages 509-537.
    15. Bennett, Robert J. & Montebruno, Piero & Van Lieshout, Carry & Smith, Harry, 2022. "Business entry and exit: career changes of proprietors in England and Wales (1851-81) using record-linkage," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113867, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Palma, Nuno & Papadia, Andrea & Pereira, Thales & Weller, Leonardo, 2020. "Slavery and development in nineteenth century Brazil," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 523, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    17. Rafael Henrique Moraes Pereira & Vanessa Nadalin & Leonardo Monasterio & Pedro Henrique Melo Albuquerque, 2012. "Quantifying Urban Centrality: A Simple Index Proposal And International Comparison," Discussion Papers 1675, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
    18. Eduard Alvarez & Mario Holzner & Stefan Jestl & Jordi Marti-Henneberg, 2016. "Introducing Railway Time in the Balkans: Economic effects of railway construction in Southeast Europe and beyond since the early 19th century until present days," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 121, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    19. José Aguilar Retureta, 2016. "Explaining regional inequality from the periphery: The mexican case, 1900-2000," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 1608, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    20. Philipson Tomas J & Jena Anupam B, 2006. "Who Benefits from New Medical Technologies? Estimates of Consumer and Producer Surpluses for HIV/AIDS Drugs," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-33, January.
    21. Bracht, Felix & Verhoeven, Dennis, 2025. "Air pollution and innovation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:22551. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.