Introduction

This chapter focuses on three aspects of pre-industrial European economic history and the possible relationships between them. The first, based on a growing body of recent studies, concerns the long-term growth experienced by the European economy over the two and a half centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution, or, at least, by important parts of it.

The maps of these three histories reveal similarities that suggest some interactions between these variables. In particular, they raise two interesting possibilities. One is that human capital may have provided an important contribution to economic growth, in a similar fashion to what has been claimed so often for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The other is that human capital in turn may have been causally determined by income and may have come to represent a relevant item in the growing consumption evidenced by Europeans, along with such ‘new’ goods as better and fancier textiles, house furnishings, exotic foodstuffs, and personal adornments.

indeed allow us to regard it as a part of the bundle of items that define the standard of living of Europeans in the pre­industrial era. In the second place, we explore the extent to which this acquisition may serve as a guide in assessing the presumable improvement in welfare in the event that the resources available for consumption should have been growing over time relative to the population.

The chapter, which is entirely based on secondary sources, consists of four parts. The first presents evidence in support of a growth in income per capita in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and discusses the standard of living debate that goes with it. The next section maps the rise of human capital during the same period and discusses its principal determinants. It also shows that to an important degree human capital functioned as an investment good, the acquisition of which served to enhance the productivity of those who possessed it. The third considers the other uses to which reading and writing could be put in this historical context, with special attention to book ownership and reading for pleasure and edification. The aim is to try and separate that part of human capital which could be viewed as an investment good, because of its economic functionality, from that which might be seen as an end in itself. Only the second can be deemed a direct source of utility and can therefore be included in the basket of consumable goods that income could buy. The fourth part discusses the implications of this for the standard of living question prior to modern industrialization. It tries to show that the contribution of human capital as an immaterial good was in fact significant and justifies a revision of current views regarding the levels of well-being achieved before 1800. This is followed by a conclusion.

2.