Abstract

There is a growing consensus that modern economic growth is in large part due to growth-enhancing institutions. Does such an approach help explain the British Industrial Revolution, which was the wellspring of the Great Enrichment? A number of widely discussed institutional mechanisms are discussed, with a special emphasis on the importance of institutions that supported the market for human capital in the form of apprenticeship that created the skilled artisans and mechanics that constituted an essential part of British precocity