Agricultural Output Growth in a Proto- and Early Industrial Setting: Evidence from Sharecropping in Western Westphalia and the Lower Rhineland, c. 1740–1860

Abstract

Abstract:An evidence-based time series on agricultural growth prior to 1850 only exists for very few German territories. Except for Saxony, there is no series available for the pre-1815 period. Based on sharecropping contracts from the estate of Anholt, we reconstruct the development of crop production for western Westphalia and the lower Rhineland c. 1740–1860. Our results show that parallel to Saxony, agricultural growth in this north-west German region was driven entirely by demand from a growing number of households engaged in proto-industrial and early industrial manufacture production. Fully commercialised land tenure systems dominated in Anholt from the beginning of the early modern period, and manorial institutions had little relevance for rural property relations. Hence, the radical French and Prussian agrarian reforms at the beginning of the nineteenth century had no effect on agricultural production. In a north-west European comparison, Anholt's sharecroppers performed rather well during this decisive formation period culminating in early industrialisation.

Economic Growth in Germany, 1500–1850

“…This took place on the background of a progressive integration of grain markets during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (Albers and Pfister 2021). Regional studies for Saxony and the lower Rhineland show that regions engaged in export-oriented textile manufacture succeeded in maintaining per-capita supply of food constant, despite an expansion of the regional population (Pfister and Kopsidis 2015;Kopsidis et al 2017). Demand that stemmed from rising incomes from non-agricultural activities and market integration stimulated at least some degree of agricultural specialization and intensification already in the eighteenth century.…”