If my original estimate of the effort involved had been more accurate, the scope of the research that underpins this book presumably would not have been as ambitious. Nonetheless, the fact that I was eventually able to finish my study of scattered archives and subsequently managed to fit the results into an interpretation of events has not been an individual achievement. As is typical, the book owes much to the enthusiasm and critical judgement of numerous people. Debts incurred in the course of its completion have, accordingly, grown. And even though a more worn-out expression is hard to come by, it really is a pleasure to recount at least some of these here.
The first group among those to whom I wish to extend my thanks consists of my former colleagues within the National Accounts Project: Michael Jansen, Alain Callewaert, Ronald van der Bie, Ary Burger, Edwin Horlings, Annelies Vermaas, Jan-Pieter Smits and René van der Voort. Instrumental to the project as a whole was its originator Jan Luiten van Zanden, to whom I am indebted in many ways, not least with regard to his patience. Some of our students participated in the project by providing research assistance. The help that was provided by Gijs Kessler, Marly Walda and Saskia van Briemen in transcribing what must have seemed profoundly unexciting market reports—or worse, my own notes of such records— is gratefully acknowledged. I thank Utrecht University for graciously offering a part-time writing sabbatical towards the end of the project, allowing me to finish what I started long ago. I am indebted to my colleagues at the Scientific Council for Government Policy for their desire in having the argument explained to them over lunch in plain language. As Keynes wrote of his General Theory, this book is chiefly addressed to my fellow scientists, but I hope it is intelligible to others.
In writing what is intended to be a work of empirical exposition and conceptual challenge to existing explanations of Dutch industrialization I was able to build upon an earlier joint effort with Jan Luiten to synthesize the existing literature with the outcomes of the national accounts, which resulted in the publishing of The Strictures of Inheritance (Princeton University Press 2004). It seems to me that the analysis pursued and the conclusions drawn here are rooted in the historiographical and quantitative overview gained at that stage. As a more general survey of the nineteenth century Dutch economy, Strictures discussed issues ranging as widely as colonial remittances, the dissolution of common lands, the rise of the factory and the emergence of new forms of corporatism in politics and civil society. Yet our main message was that the transition to a pattern of higher growth and structural change in output, employment
The sustained influence of these notions is evident throughout. What the present work adds, besides an analysis of factor and product markets documenting such effects, is a broadened panoply of forces. Employing theoretical notions from open-economy thinking and development economics, it provides an account of the allocation of resources and its effect on the chronology of growth. To this effect, the analysis uses a reconstruction of prices, wages, rents and rates of interest in combination with data on production, investment, trade and a wide range of structural indicators. As a result, long-held partly implicit notions on the economics of industrialization are adapted. Thus, the book makes it clear that, both through its own gains in productivity and structural change in the allocation of labor, agriculture only played a part in faster income growth from the 1880s. It shows that before the turn to faster growth there was an industry-led slowdown that was connected to falling output prices and fiscal policy choices in the wake of the Belgian secession. And it demonstrates that faster industrial growth driven by a higher capital-intensity from the mid-1890s may be explained by real factor costs. Most principally however, it reaches the conclusion that in spite of its openness the industrialization of the Dutch economy was initially driven by liberalized domestic markets, making it dependent on institutions that delivered gains in real wages and a more even distribution of income.
Although a largely solitary undertaking, the process of completing a book such as this also serves as a reminder of the benevolent interest that continues to characterize the economic history community. I am fortunate to share my fascination for the economic aspects of the past with a group of academic friends who provided me with the opportunity to present my findings to audiences of varying specializations. In this manner, the late Charles Feinstein and Nicholas Dimsdale have been my hosts at All Souls and Queens College Oxford, just as Joel Mokyr invited me to Northwestern and Albrecht Ritschl and Simon Gaechter, at that time affiliates of the Zürich Institut für Empirische
Thank you all.
Arthur van Riel
August 2020