CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 340Historical Economic and Social StudiesEconomic Growth and ProductivityGlobal trade and economics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 2 of the 2 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Ocean Freight Rates and Productivity, 1740–1913: The Primacy of Mechanical Invention Reaffirmed

Harley, C. Knick·1988·The Journal of Economic History
DOI 10.1017/s0022050700006641
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This article demonstrates that new industrial technology caused a revolutionary decline in nineteenth-century freight rates. This overturns Douglass North's well-known conclusion that organizational improvements were the dominant source of savings. While North's American freight rate series declines prior to the use of the metal steamship, British rates decline only modestly prior to 1850 and then rapidly as metal steamships come into use. Cotton freights dominate North's index and declined when cotton became more tightly packed for shipment. Metal ships and steam propulsion, however, caused a general decline in freight rates after 1850.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0022050700006641

Cites

2 of 2 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 2 references

Research works printed but not linked: 21

  1. Brown, 1927, Cotton, 340
  2. Bruchey, 1967, Cotton and the Growth of the American Economy 1790–1860
  3. Ville, 1986, Total Factor Productivity in the English Shipping Industry: the North-East Coal Trade, 1750–1850, 39, 355
  4. Albion, 1938, Square Riggers on Schedule: The New York Sailing Packets to England, France and the Cotton Ports
  5. Harley, 1972, Essays on a Mature Economy: Britain after 1840, 215
  6. Hausman, 1987, The English Coastal Coal Trade, 1691–1910: How Rapid Was Productivity Growth?, 40, 588
  7. North, 1965, Les Grandes voies maritimes dans le monde, XV–XIX siècles, 209
  8. Hammond, 1897, The Cotton Industry
  9. Mitchell, 1962, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, 468
  10. McCloskey, 1981, The Economic History of Britain since 1700, I, 114
  11. Hammond, Harry , “The Handling and Uses of Cotton,” in U.S.D.A., The Cotton Plant, Office of Experiment Stations Bulletin, no. 33, 1896, pp. 360–65.
  12. Allen, 1979, International Competition in Iron and Steel, 1850–1913, Journal, 39, 911
  13. Details of these calculations are available in Harley, C. K. , “Shipbuilding and Shipping in the Late Nineteenth Century,” pp. 302–12.
  14. Shepherd, 1972, Shipping, maritime trade and the economic development of colonial North America
  15. North, 1958, Ocean Freight Rates and Economic Development 1750–1913, Journal, 18, 537
  16. Ville, 1987, Defending Productivity Growth in the English Coal Trade during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, 40, 597
  17. North, 1966, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860, 258
  18. Feinstein, 1972, National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965, 132
  19. Harley, 1985, Change and Adaptation in Maritime History: The North Atlantic Fleets in the Nineteenth Century, 169
  20. Crafts, 1985, British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution
  21. 1960, Historical Statistics of the United States, 547

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 340

Related

Metadata

Authors
Harley, C. K.
Affiliations
Western University (CA)
Corresponding author
Harley, C. Knick
Venue
The Journal of Economic History
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
1988-12
Volume
48
Issue
4
Pages
851-876
ISSN
  • 0022-0507 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-6372
DOI
10.1017/s0022050700006641
OpenAlex
W2086767954
Cited by
340
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 12
FWCI
5.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 7397 d)
Locations
The Journal of Economic History (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Historical Economic and Social Studies
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Global trade and economics
Keywords
ocean freight rates, productivity, mechanical inventions, industrial technology, steamships, steam propulsion, organizational change, Douglass North, 19th century, maritime transport

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review