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Prices and production: agricultural supply response in fourteenth-century England
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 15:32 authored by Eric B SchneiderThis article challenges the growing consensus in the literature that medieval manorial managers were price responsive in their production decisions. Using prices of and acreages planted with wheat, barley, and oats on manors held by the bishop of Winchester from 1325 to 1370, price elasticities of supply are estimated for each grain in aggregate and on each particular manor. Aggregate price elasticities of supply for wheat, barley, and oats were rarely statistically significant and when significant were very low compared with elasticities estimated for developing and developed countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The low levels of agricultural supply response in fourteenth-century England suggest that commercialization was not as dominant in the medieval economy as has been argued. Thus, structural changes in the economy, such as the leasing of demesnes, the growth of wage labour, and the end of villeinage, may have been more important than price fluctuations in driving long-run economic change after the Black Death. Likewise, a shift from low price responsiveness to higher price responsiveness could have been an important part of the capitalist transformation of agriculture in the early modern period.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Economic History ReviewISSN
0013-0117Publisher
Blackwell PublishingExternal DOI
Issue
1Volume
67Page range
66-91Department affiliated with
- History Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2013-08-29Usage metrics
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