The Location of the UK Cotton Textiles Industry in 1838: a Quantitative Analysis

Arbeitspapier

We examine the geography of cotton textiles in Britain in 1838 to test claims about why the industry came to be so heavily concentrated in Lancashire. Our analysis considers both first and second nature aspects of geography including the availability of water power, humidity, coal prices, market access and sunk costs. We show that some of these characteristics have substantial explanatory power. Moreover, we exploit the change from water to steam power to show that the persistent effect of first nature characteristics on industry location can be explained by a combination of sunk costs and agglomeration effects.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: EHES Working Papers in Economic History ; No. 45

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economic History: Manufacturing and Construction: Europe: Pre-1913 ; Regional and Urban History: Europe: Pre-1913 ; Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity
• Subject: agglomeration ; cotton textiles ; geography ; industry location

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Crafts, Nicholas ; Wolf, Nikolaus
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): European Historical Economics Society (EHES)
• (where): s.l.
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/246976
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET