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THE TWO REVOLUTIONS, LANDED ELITES, AND EDUCATION DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2019

Duarte N. Leite ,
Óscar Afonso  and
Sandra T. Silva
Duarte N. Leite
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy
Óscar Afonso*
Affiliation:
University of Porto
Sandra T. Silva
Affiliation:
University of Porto
*
Address correspondence to: Oscar Afonso, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia, CEFUP, CEFAGE and OBEGEF, Rua Dr Roberto Frias, 4200-464, Porto, Portugal; e-mail: oafonso@fep.up.pt
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Abstract

Understanding the causes of the Industrial Revolution, namely the process of transition from a Malthusian equilibrium to modern economic growth, has been the subject of passionate debate. This paper contributes to insights into the process of industrialization and the demographic transition that followed. We present a model that proposes a mechanism behind the claim that landed elites had strong incentives to block education reforms. By applying the theory of interest groups to landownership, landowners could delay education. However, they could not prevent its introduction indefinitely since gains for the landed elites derived from education would at some moment surpass the costs associated with them. We also sustain that improvements in agricultural productivity prior to the Industrial Revolution may have induced a positive impact on the landowners’ decision to educate the population, which led to an earlier introduction of education reforms. The conclusions fit the patterns of the late boom of industrialization and demographic transition and help explain why some countries (e.g., Britain and The Netherlands) had accelerated education reforms and a faster process of industrialization than most continental countries. A theoretical model is presented, and numerical simulations are exhibited to illustrate our claims.

Keywords

Industrial and Agricultural RevolutionDemographic TransitionEducationInterest Groups
Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 24 , Issue 6 , September 2020 , pp. 1478 - 1511
Copyright
© 2019 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We particularly thank Oded Galor and Pedro Mazeda Gil, an editor as well as two anonymous referees for all the very helpful suggestions in previous versions of this paper. We also greatly benefited from the comments of the seminar and conference participants at Brown University, University of Porto, and PEJ conference. Andrea Villeneuve delivered excellent research assistance. The usual disclaimer applies. This study was funded by FCT, Portugal, and FEDER/COMPETE 2020, through grant UID/ECO/04007/2013 (respectively, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006890 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007659).

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