The Institutional Origins of the Industrial Revolution

on an earlier version are acknowledged with gratitude. 1 North (1981, p. 166) comes close to linking the institutional changes of the late eighteenth century with the Industrial 1 Revolution when he maintains that it was explained by " a combination of better-specified and enforced property rights and increasingly efficient and expanding markets. " North and Weingast (1989, p. 831) are more prudent and wonder if arguing that without the Glorious Revolution the British economy would have followed a very different path and would not have experienced an Industrial Revolution would be " claiming too much. " Introduction. The new institutional economics has, so far, had little to say about the Industrial