IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/21280.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Debt into Growth: How Sovereign Debt Accelerated the First Industrial Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • Jaume Ventura
  • Hans-Joachim Voth

Abstract

Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain’s borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance of liquidly traded bonds allowed the nobility to switch out of low-return investments such as agricultural improvements. This switch lowered factor demand by old sectors and increased profits in new, rising ones such as textiles and iron. Because external financing contributed little to the Industrial Revolution, this boost in profits in new industries accelerated structural change, making Britain more industrial more quickly. The absence of an effective transfer of financial resources from old to new sectors also helps to explain why the Industrial Revolution led to massive social change – because the rich nobility did not lend to or invest in the revolutionizing industries, it failed to capture the high returns to capital in these sectors, leading to relative economic decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaume Ventura & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "Debt into Growth: How Sovereign Debt Accelerated the First Industrial Revolution," NBER Working Papers 21280, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21280
    Note: EFG IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21280.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Krishnamurthy, Arvind, 2006. "Bubbles and capital flow volatility: Causes and risk management," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 35-53, January.
    2. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1984. "Why Was British Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 687-712, September.
    3. Gino Gancia & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2009. "Technological Change and the Wealth of Nations," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 93-120, May.
    4. Broadberry,Stephen & Campbell,Bruce M. S. & Klein,Alexander & Overton,Mark & van Leeuwen,Bas, 2015. "British Economic Growth, 1270–1870," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107070783, December.
    5. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2016. "Managing Credit Bubbles," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 753-789.
    6. Hoffman, Philip T. & Postel-Vinay, Gilles & Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 2001. "Priceless Markets," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226348018.
    7. Barro, Robert J., 1987. "Government spending, interest rates, prices, and budget deficits in the United Kingdom, 1701-1918," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 221-247, September.
    8. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Preface," MPRA Paper 17451, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    10. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Chapter 1," MPRA Paper 17452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    12. Heim, Carol E. & Mirowski, Philip, 1987. "Interest Rates and Crowding-Out During Britain's Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 117-139, March.
    13. Feinstein, Charles H., 1998. "Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 625-658, September.
    14. Jean Paul Azam & Bruno Biais & Magueye Dia & Christine Maurel, 2001. "Informal and Formal Credit Markets and Credit Rationing in Côte D'Ivoire," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 520-534.
    15. Quinn, Stephen, 2001. "The Glorious Revolution'S Effect On English Private Finance: A Microhistory, 1680–1705," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 593-615, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2018. "The Macroeconomics of Rational Bubbles: A User's Guide," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 505-539, August.
    2. Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2016. "What Made Great Britain so Great? From the Fiscal-Military State to the First Industrial Revolution," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 16.02, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    3. O'Brien, Patrick Karl & Palma, Nuno, 2020. "Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694-1844," eabh Papers 20-03, The European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH).
    4. Mohajan, Haradhan, 2019. "The First Industrial Revolution: Creation of a New Global Human Era," MPRA Paper 96644, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Jul 2019.
    5. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    6. Stephan Heblich & Alex Trew, 2019. "Banking and Industrialization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1753-1796.
    7. Sussman, Nathan, 2019. "The Financial Development of London in the 17th Century Revisited: A View from the Accounts of the Corporation of London," CEPR Discussion Papers 13920, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Ni Yuping & Martin Uebele, 2015. "Size and structure of disaster relief when state capacity is limited: China’s 1823 flood," Working Papers 0083, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    9. Stephan Heblich & Alex Trew, 2015. "Banking and Industrialization," CESifo Working Paper Series 5503, CESifo.
    10. I. Shovkun, 2016. "Neo-industrialization in Ukraine: are there macroeconomic background and investment potential?," Economy and Forecasting, Valeriy Heyets, issue 4, pages 48-69.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:21280. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.