Trials of Convergence: Prices, Markets and Industrialization in the Netherlands, 1800-1913(14 Library of Economic History)

For over a century now, historians have debated the causes of the lagged industrialization of the Dutch economy during the nineteenth century. To this debate, Trials of Convergence brings the analytical perspective of prices, factor costs and the functioning of markets. Its critical insight is that only an approach based on the integrated incentive structure of the economy allows us to delimit the role of alternative explanations. Using statistical reconstruction and microdata, it shows that the retarded transition resulted from a confluence of forces. These ranged from open economy effects and natural endowments to the resilient influence of the institutions of the former Dutch Republic and the fiscal policy adopted in response to Belgian secession. At the height of the British Industrial Revolution the Dutch economy slowed, triggering a return to the problems of eighteenth-century stagnation. All this meant that the transition to 'modern economic growth' after 1860 came about only in a changed international context and after a period of politico-economic reform.

Table of Contents:
Preface List of Figures and Tables Outline Chronology Note on Methodology and the Database 1 Introduction  1 Accounting for Dutch Nineteenth Century Development  2 The Debate: from Backwardness to Balanced Growth  3 Prices, Markets and Industrialization  4 The Structure of This Book 2 Dutch Prices and Growth Across Industrialization  1 The Post-Napoleonic Perspective  2 The Legacy of the Republic  3 A Broad View of Nineteenth Century Prices  4 Prices as Deflators: The Chronology of Growth and Trade  5 Structural Change and the Pattern of Development 3 Prices and Structural Response in Agriculture  1 The Issues: Agriculture and Industrialization  2 The Context: The Historiography of Agricultural Development  3 Prices as Deflators: The Outline of Agricultural Growth  4 Factor Inputs and Productivity Growth  5 Agricultural Output Prices Reconsidered  6 Input Prices and Factor Costs  7 Composite Costs and Structural Response   Annex 3 Supplementing agricultural labor force estimates 4 Prices and Industrial Development  1 Shifting Perceptions of Industrial Growth  2 Capturing the Debate  3 Prices as Deflators: The Outline of Industrial Growth  4 A Sectoral View of Industrial Development   4.1 1813–1830: Postwar Recovery   4.2 1830–1860: Stimulation and Slowdown 4.3 1860–1913: Three Phases of Growth  5 Sources of Industrial Growth  6 Output Prices and Input Costs   6.1 Output Prices   6.2 Input Costs  7 Factor Costs and the Dualistic Transition   Annex 4 Supplementing nonagricultural labor force estimates 5 Comparative Costs and Domestic Integration  1 The Comparative Cost Hypothesis  2 Domestic Integration and Retarded Growth  3 How Wide Were International Price Gaps?  4 Industrial Inputs and Domestic Integration 6 Wage Gaps and the Labor Market Equilibrium  1 The Labor Market Debate: Data and Issues  2 Regional and Comparative Wage Gaps  3 Dualism and the Labor Market Equilibrium   3.1 Measuring Shifts in Labor Demand   3.2 Natural Increase and Disamenities: Urban and Rural Demographics   3.3 Migration and the Dynamics of Labor Supply  4 Wage Gaps, Poor Relief and the Urban Crisis 7 Prices, Markets and Fiscal Policy  1 The Dutch Debt Overhang and Economic Retardation  2 The Post-Napoleonic Sustainability Trap  3 Capital Markets: Public Debt and Crowding-out   3.1 Openness and Early Intermediation   3.2 Rates of Interest and the Public Debt   3.3 Searching for Crowding-out Effects  4 Taxation and Consumer Demand  5 Industrialization and the Fuel Excise  6 Regulation, Market Integration and Production  7 Dutch Retardation as a Confluence of Forces   Annex 7.1 The Effective Excise on Coal and Peat   Annex 7.2 The Estimated Consumption Function for Coal 8 The Mechanisms of Post-1860 Growth  1 Faster Growth in a Changing World  2 Macroeconomic Development  3 Sectoral Dynamics   3.1 Growth and Spillovers in Services   3.2 Industrial Slowdown and Resurgence  4 Structural Change in Investment   4.1 Outcomes: the Growth and Structure of Investment   4.2 Finance and the Evolution of the Capital Market   4.3 Accounting for Nonresidential Investment  5 The Role of Foreign Trade  6 Real Wages and Household Consumption   6.1 Real Wages and Living Standards   6.2 Household Expenditure and Propensities of Demand  7 From Industrial Catch-up to Diversified Growth Conclusion Sources and References Index

About the Author :
Arthur van Riel is senior research fellow at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. His earlier books and papers covered Dutch early modern and 19th century economic history and the political economy of the Weimar Republic. He has also published on a variety of policy issues, among which the European Monetary Union and the evolution of money, banking and private debt.