Understand the idea
Allen argues that Britain's relatively high wages and cheap energy created incentives for labor-saving, energy-using inventions. This is an explanation of why certain technologies paid there, not merely who first imagined them. [S33] Pomeranz's comparative account emphasizes coal, colonial resources, and the importance of comparing advanced regions with advanced regions rather than Europe's richest areas with all of Asia. [S34] The accounts highlight different mechanisms and evidence; they need not be treated as perfectly exclusive.
Worked example
Imagine the same machine available in two regions. It saves ten labor-days but uses costly fuel. Changing wages and fuel prices can reverse its profitability. Now add access to imported raw materials. Identify which part of the explanation each change addresses.
Where the idea stops
The weight assigned to wages, energy, institutions, empire, knowledge, and chronology remains contested. Do not reduce industrialization to cultural superiority or one numerical cause. [S33, S34]
Connect it
Economics and creativity: incentives, invention, and constrained historical choices.
Go deeper
Why is explaining profitability of adoption different from explaining invention alone?
Sources
Robert C. Allen · Research reference · Date: 2011-04-12
Presents the high-wage/cheap-energy induced-invention explanation.
Link checked 2026-10-17 · Publisher metadata and abstract accessed; full article access may require a subscription.American Historical Association · Research reference · Date: Date not established
Scholarly account of The Great Divergence argument, regional comparison, coal, and colonial resources.
Link checked 2026-10-17 · Expert institutional profile accessed; account of Pomeranz's thesis, not the full book.