Data and code: Nominal wage patterns, monopsony, and labour market power in early modern England

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Meredith Paker, Grinnell College; Judy Stephenson, University College London; Patrick Wallis, London School of Economics and Political Science

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
1.DescriptiveStats.do text/plain 5 KB 02/05/2024 06:56:AM
2.StPaulsLaborSupplyElasticity.do text/plain 4.5 KB 02/02/2024 01:00:PM
DobsonData.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 28.6 KB 09/30/2023 01:14:PM
Figure3.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 19.7 KB 02/02/2024 11:55:AM
README.rtf application/rtf 2.8 KB 02/02/2024 12:12:PM
RegressionPanel.dta application/x-stata-dta 3.2 MB 02/02/2024 01:01:PM
Table1.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 9.7 KB 09/30/2023 10:05:AM
WagesPricesData.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 30.4 KB 02/02/2024 12:48:PM
cpi.dta application/x-stata-dta 10.9 KB 02/02/2024 01:00:PM

Project Citation: 

Paker, Meredith, Stephenson, Judy, and Wallis, Patrick. Data and code: Nominal wage patterns, monopsony, and labour market power in early modern England. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-02-05. https://doi.org/10.3886/E198145V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Records of long-eighteenth-century English wage rates exhibit almost absolute nominal rigidity over many decades, alongside significant dispersion between the wages paid by different organisations for the same type of work in the same location. These features of preindustrial wages have been obscured by data aggregation and the construction of real wage series, which introduce variation. In this paper we argue that the standard explanations for wage rigidity in economic history are insufficient. We show econometric evidence for monopsony power in one major organisation and argue that the main historical wage series are also affected by employer power. Eighteenth-century England had an imperfectly competitive labour market with large frictions. This gave large organisations the power to set wage policies. We discuss the implications for the eighteenth-century British economy and research into long-run wages more generally. 


Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms labour markets; industrial revolution; construction; eighteenth century England; wages; real wages; monopsony
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage England
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1675 – 1790


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V1 [2024-02-05]

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