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The Steam Engine in England and France

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The Steam Engine in England and France Master’s Thesis 2016 30 ECTS School of Economics and Business The spark that ignited the Industrial Revolution An examination of the institutions surrounding the development of the steam engine in England and France Joshua Bragg Development and Natural Resource Economics Contents Preface and Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Research Questions ............................................................................................................................. 5 Why did England dominate steam engine development and not France? ..................................... 6 Journey into Great Economic Mysteries ............................................................................................. 6 Background .............................................................................................................................................. 8 Energy Canyons ................................................................................................................................... 8 The Sources of Economic Growth ....................................................................................................... 8 The Mystery of Economic Growth ..................................................................................................... 10 Endogenous Growth Theory: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back ................................................... 11 What Causes Invention? ........................................................................................................................ 12 Invention versus Innovation .......................................................................................................... 12 Macro vs Micro Invention ............................................................................................................. 13 The Heroic Inventor ........................................................................................................................... 14 Invention as a Response to Stimuli ................................................................................................... 14 Socially Induced / Determined Invention .......................................................................................... 15 A Synthesized Probabilistic Theory of Invention ............................................................................... 16 Why England? ........................................................................................................................................ 18 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 21 Overcoming Causality Issues ............................................................................................................. 21 The Dangers of Econometrics ........................................................................................................ 21 The Strengths of Economic History ............................................................................................... 23 Comparative Economic History ......................................................................................................... 24 Using Econometrics as an Inspiration ............................................................................................... 25 The Case: The Steam Engine – Step by Step ......................................................................................... 27 French Beginnings, English Domination ............................................................................................ 27 Denis Papin .................................................................................................................................... 27 Thomas Savery .............................................................................................................................. 29 Thomas Newcomen ....................................................................................................................... 31 James Watt .................................................................................................................................... 32 A Comparative Analysis of the Drivers / Causes Surrounding the Development of the Steam Engine from Papin (late 1600s) to Watt (late 1700s): ....................................................................................... 34 Science ............................................................................................................................................... 34 The Science of Steam and Vacuum: a short history ...................................................................... 35 The Industrial Enlightenment ........................................................................................................ 39 Resource Endowments ...................................................................................................................... 46 Demand for Energy ........................................................................................................................ 46 Market Size: Mining ....................................................................................................................... 51 Supply of Inputs ............................................................................................................................. 55 Economic Institutions ........................................................................................................................ 62 Financing and Capital .................................................................................................................... 62 Property Rights and Patents .......................................................................................................... 64 Industrial Espionage ...................................................................................................................... 71 Social Structure, Political Institutions and Religious Influence ......................................................... 74 Inventive Culture / Class ................................................................................................................ 74 Political .......................................................................................................................................... 82 Religion .......................................................................................................................................... 88 Discussion: The Mystery Revealed ........................................................................................................ 93 Comparison and Evaluation of the Fundamental Institutions .......................................................... 93 Necessary Conditions (Causal Factors) .......................................................................................... 94 Contributing Factors ...................................................................................................................... 96 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 98 Post-Script: Steam Power, the Industrial Revolution and Economic Growth ..................................... 101 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 104 Preface and Acknowledgements A burst of steam is released into the air, as a mist of an idea. If you can solve the mystery of how to capture that breath of steam (or idea), you can turn it into power. – Joshua Bragg My first encounter with steam power was as a child, anxious for a mug of hot chocolate after coming home from school one rainy day. I needed to mix hot water with the cocoa powder, so I filled our teakettle and put it on the stove with the highest heat possible. My attention span lasted about thirty seconds before I left the kitchen and turned on the TV to watch a G.I. Joe cartoon. Finally, when a commercial came, I remembered my task at hand. Returning to the kitchen, I saw that the lid to the kettle was jumping up and down as if it was ready to explode. As I reached to turn off the heat, I burnt my arm from the steam rushing out from the loose lid, searing the memory into my mind for use thirty year later. There is a similar story told of one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, who as a twelve-year-old boy was scolded by his aunt for staring at the kettle for hours. The difference though is stark. Although we both were inspired by the power of steam raising the lid of a kettle, only James Watt went on to build a steam engine. In contrast, I chose to write about it. The topic was motivated by a desire to understand economic growth and what made the West rich. With that came a realization that technological innovation actually generates most growth. This is especially apparent when investigating the impact of the steam engine, which ended up powering a large part of the Industrial Revolution. Applied to transportation, the steam engine locomotive and ship connected the world, allowing for a tightly integrated global economy. With a huge increase in
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