The Myth of the Corporate Economy: Factor Costs, Industrial Structure, and Technological Choice in the Lancashire and New England Cotton Industries, 1900-1913

For Britain, the principal "new" source of data is the 1906 Enqui.•y in Earnings and Hours, which gives employment levels and wages for 10,000 mule spinners, 17,000 piecers, almost 4,000 ring spinners, and 70,000 weavers [1906 Enquiry, pp. xiii, 29-31]. It is the most reliable source for wages and employment in this period. Further, the information is disaggregated in two useful ways. First, data for mule wages and employment are divided according to whether the spinner was spinning coarse (sub-40), medium (40-80) or fine (supra-80) yarns. As tings were overwhelmingly used both in Britain and the US to spin sub-40 yarns, dividing mule spinners by count allows ready and fair comparisons between the two technologies. Second, the data is disaggregated by district, dividing Lancashire into 12 towns and their hinterlands. This allows us to look at variations in unit labor costs across