Measuring the national wealth in seventeenth-century England

Paul Slack

This article discusses William Petty’s 1665 estimate of the wealth of England and Wales – the first set of national accounts – and compares it with Gregory King’s (1696), which is shown to be heavily influenced by it.  There are conclusions about the methodology of the first political arithmeticians, the kinds of national resources which could be measured for the first time in the seventeenth century, and the lacunae which made it likely that Petty and king underestimated per caput and aggregate incomes.  An appendix prints a contemporary analysis of hearth tax returns for every county.

Article 2:

The wages and employment of female day-labourers in English agriculture, 1740-1850

Joyce Burnette

Using a new sample of farm accounts from 84 farms throughout England, this article provides measures of regional variation and changes over time in female wages and employment in agriculture.  Female wages were not fixed, but changed over time and responded to high demand for female labour.  The female-male wage ratio fell between 1750 and 1850, except in the industrial north west.  In 1851 approximately 10 per cent of agricultural day-labourers were female.  In the industrial north west, opportunities for factory employment reduced the supply of females to agriculture, but elsewhere the relative demand for female labour in agriculture declined.

Article 3:

France’s slow transition from privatised to government-administered tax collection: tax farming in the eighteenth century

Eugene N White

The establishment of a government bureaucracy to collect taxes is regarded as one of the essential features of a modern economy.  While Britain is considered a pioneer, France has been treated as a laggard because of continued reliance on tax farming.  Focusing on the largest tax farm, France’s late transition from private to government tax collection is explained in principal-agent context by the difficulties of monitoring employees and borrowing at low cost in the capital market.  Tax farmers continued to earn high returns, absorbing the risk of fluctuating collections, leaving the Crown with lower revenue.

Article 4:

The consumption of radio broadcast technologies in Hong Kong, c.1930-1960

David Clayton

This article uses previously under-exploited quantitative and qualitative primary sources in Hong Kong, the US and the UK to chronicle how radio broadcast technologies extended in a Less Developed Country.  As incomes were rising and the price of radio receiving sets was falling, demand-side forces were strong in Hong Kong.  Yet, these forces alone cannot explain the pattern of diffusion observed.  Innovations accelerated the take-up of radios.  The liberalization and de-regulation of radio broadcasting provided pre-requisites for these supply-side shifts.