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Economic Growth and the Consumption of Coal in Austria and Hungary 1831–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Nachum T. Gross
Nachum T. Gross
Affiliation:
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
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Extract

The scarcity of quantitative evidence on economic growth in the nineteenth century is a strong incentive for the use of representative indicators, instead of compound indexes or supplemented by them. Consumption series of coal, iron, and cotton are prominent candidates to serve this purpose, due to the central roles played by these materials in European industrialization. A further point in their favor is the relatively high availability and quality of mining and foreign trade statistics. The specific functions and link-ages of those three staples, however, were quite different, and thus their growth paths represent different aspects and processes. For the overall modernizing transformation of an economy, coal consumption evidently suggests itself as the best single indicator, at least until the end of the century. Its growth reflects the increasing output of industry, transportation, and even agriculture, inasmuch as they relied on coal for heat and/or for motive power. This means that coal stands for a broad cross-section of the economy, and furthermore, for a growing one. The substitution of mineral fuel for wood or charcoal and of steam for water power was not only the most general component of industrialization, in the wider sense of the term. It also was a prerequisite for the growth potential of firms and industries in many instances, among them such strategic sectors as iron and steel or overland transportation. Similarly, the introduction of steam engines was a characteristic of the innovating firm in agriculture and in land reclamation. On these grounds one would expect the growth of coal consumption to represent the pace of transition to modern economic growth, rather than the growth of industrial product only.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 898 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

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References

The author wishes to thank Fred Gottheil, and the editor and referee of this Journal for very helpful comments.

1 As usual with respect to the Habsburg period, “Austria” here refers to the Cisleithania part of the Monarchy and “Hungaria” to the domains of the Hungarian Crown (or Transleithania). Unfortunately, no collection of historical statistics, has yet been compiled for these political entities, and we have to rely on the yearbooks: Tafeln zur Statistik der österreichischen Monarchie (vols. I-XXI, 1828–48, n.s. I-V, 1849/51–1860/65); Statistisches Jahrbuch der österreichischen Monarchie (vols. I-XVIII, 1863–81); Oesterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch für die im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreiche und Länder (vols. I-XXV, 1882–1916/17); Ungarisches Statistisches Jahrbuch (Magyar Statistikai Evkönyv) (Budapest, 1872–1889/90, n.s. 1893- ).

2 Cf. detailed tables, by provinces and mining establishments, in Schwackhöfer, FranzHeizwert der Kohlen in Oesterreich-Ungarn (Vienna, 1893), pp. 85–92Google Scholar; also idem, Die Kohlen Oesterreich-Ungarns und Preuss.-Schlesiens (2d ed.; Vienna, 1901), pp. 8–12.Google Scholar

3 Austria, Bundesministerium für Handel und Wiederaufbau, 100 (Hundert) Jahre im Dienste der Wirtschaft (Vienna, 1961), II, pp. 390Google Scholar–94; in a single Carinthian valley, Lavanttal, the quality of lignites varies between 2300 and 4500 kcal.

4 Tafeln; also Ausweise über den Handel von Oesterreich, summary volumes for 1831 to 1840 and 1841 to 1850.

5 Magyar Statisztikai Közlemények (Ungarische Statistische Mitteilungen), n.s. vol. 63 (Budapest, 1923)Google Scholar; this is a retrospective volume, whereas the methodology of the series is discussed in the early volumes (e.g. for 1881/82).

6 Statistik des Zwischenverkehrs etc. (Vienna, 1900–1915)Google Scholar; also Aussenhandel und Zwischenverkehr etc. (Vienna, 1905–1915).Google Scholar

7 Years of absolute decline in Austrian coal consumption; for Hungary the dates are: 1886, 1899, 1902, 1910.

8 For business cycle history one would obviously prefer other series, such as pig iron consumption (or at least production).

9 That imports were all coal, in effect, and exports all from Austria during these years is not an estimate, but based on the evidence.

10 86 percent in 1912/13, as against 58 percent in Hungary.

11 This is not the case, for a comparison of coal consumption with Rudolph's mining-sector output index. Rudolph, Richard L. “The Role of Financial Institutions in the Industrialization of the Czech Crownlands, 1880–1914,” unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of Wisconsin, 1968)Google Scholar, ch. i and appendix I.

12 Rossiwall, Josef“Die Entwicklung des Mineralkohlen-Bergbaues in Oesterreich,” Statistische Monatschrift, III (1877), p. 23.Google Scholar A large part of this survey's argument is based on the effects of railroads on coal consumption. It also contains interesting details on the utilization of lignites in industry and transportation, to which Austrian technicians applied much ingenuity; and on the strong preference of housewives for firewood, until the 1873 depression.

13 Ibid., pp. 14, 38. Sea-going steamers all used English coal, but were not included in the foreign trade statistics. In Austrian manufacturing the beet sugar industry deserves special mention as an important customer for coals.

14 Gross, Nachum“Austrian Industrial Statistics 1880/85 and 1911/13,” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, CXXIV (1968), 66–68.Google Scholar

15 Hoffmann, Walther G. “The Take-Off in Germany,” in Rostow, W. W. (ed.), The Economics of Take-Off into Sustained Growth (London: Macmillan, 1964), Graph 4 on p. 107.Google Scholar

16 Hoffmann, Walther G.et al., Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft etc. (Berlin: Springer, 1965), pp. 338Google Scholar–42.

17 David S. Landes (ed.), “Comparative Historical Statistics of Europe,” mimeographed manuscript, incomplete, prepared at the University of California, Berkeley; see also there for Belgian coal consumption, which grew 4.4 percent in 1831–1873 (4.6 percent in 1851–73) and only 2.7 percent in 1871–1913.

18 J. Marczewski, “The Take-Off Hypothesis and French Experience,” in Rostow (ed.), The Economics of Take-Off …, 124–27.

19 Hoffmann, Wachstum, pp. 59, 63, 390–93.

20 Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 38Google Scholar; Rostow (ed.), The Economics of Take-Off …, pp. 96, 138.

21 Barsby, Steven“Economic Backwardness and the Characteristics of Development,” TheJournal of Economic History, XXIX (1969), 450Google Scholar–51.

22 The alternative would be to join Marczewski and others in rejecting the take off conception as inapplicable to some countries, and Austria among them.

23 See fn. 14, and Gross, Nachum “Industrialization in Austria in the Nineteenth Century,” unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of California, Berkeley, 1966), pp. 65–66Google Scholar and 94–95.

24 Rudolph, “The Role of Financial Institutions …”, p. 22.

25 März, Eduard “Zur Genesis der Schumpeterschen Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung,” in On Political Economy and Econometrics (Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1965), pp. 370Google Scholar–71.

26 Tafeln 1842 (cf. fn. 1), text to Table 38. The figures had appeared already in Tafeln 1841 in a footnote to Table 41, section xiv.

27 The administrative subdivision of Hungary was disregarded, mainly because the Hungarian output, data before 1851 had to be rejected as too unreliable, as shown further on.

28 Rossiwall, Josef“Die österreichische Mineralkohlen-Production in den Jahren 1876–1885,” Statistische Monatschrift, XIV (1888), 555Google Scholar, 562–63; cf. also Tafeln 1860/65, text to Table 3 of Montan-Industrie.

29 , Wilhelm OffergeldGrundlagen und Ursachen der industriellen Entwicklung Ungarns (Jena: Fischer, 1914), p. 79.Google Scholar

30 Landes, David S.“Technological Change and Development in Western Europe, 1750–1914,” Cambridge Economic History of Europe, VI (1965), p. 423.Google Scholar

31 Hertz, Friedrich, Die Produktionsgrundlagen der österreichischen Industrie (6th ed.; Vienna: Verlag für Fachliteratur, 1917/1921), p. 45Google Scholar; confirmed by Koren, Stephan, “Die Industrialisierung Oesterreichs,” in Weber, Wilhelm (ed.), Oesterreichs Wirtschaftsstruktur (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1961), p. 273.Google Scholar

32 In addition to the sources mentioned in fns. 12 and 28, which refer to the earlier parts of our period, we also have sources which show the average pit-prices of Austrian lignites consistently somewhat above 50 percent of coals throughout the years 1901–1911 (e.g., Austria, Statistische Zentralkommission, Statistische Rückblicke aus Oesterreich \Vienna, 1913], p. 73); and the Hungarian statistical yearbooks show the same relationship. Cf. also Stephan Koren, “Struktur und Nutzung der Energiequellen Oesterreichs,” in W. Weber (ed.), Oesterreichs Wirtschaftsstruktur, p. 165, with respect to the present Republic's Braunkohlen: “Ihr Heizwert schwankt je nach Vorkommen in weiten Grenzen und liegt im Mittel bei etwa der Hälfte von Steinkohle.”

33 Explicitly only from 1887 on, but before that coke quantities can be inferred from data on: coal, lignite, and total mineral fuel.

34 According to Rossiwall, the output ratio was only 60 percent; cf. also Welt- Ausstellung 1878, Kohle und Eisen in allen Ländern der Erde, ed. Pechar, Johann (Berlin, 1878), p. 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar: the average coking output ratio in Austria was 55–61 percent. But for Germany 75 percent is assumed by the Preussische Geologische Landesanstalt, Weltmontanstatistik: Die Versorgung der Weltwirtschaft mit Bergwerkerzeugnissen, vol. I: 1860–1922 (Stuttgart, 1925), part I, p. 30.Google Scholar

35 Josef Rossiwall's 1877 article (cf. fn. 12), 24–26; also Tafeln 1842 and Tafeln 1860/65.

36 These estimated proportions rely on the composition of Hungarian output in the early 1850's, and on the provincial breakdown of trade between Austria and Hungary in the early 1840's.

37 Trade data were collected at the customs line and thus excluded mainly smuggled quantities, which were hardly significant in the case of mineral coal. Mining data were supplied by the firms, and those not owned by government—in Hungary all coal and most lignite was privately produced—had motives for understating their output. Cf. also the recurring footnote in the Tafeln for 1831–1847, that data on private production of pig-iron in Hungary were incomplete.

38 Based on the descriptive sources already cited, and on the detailed data available for 1879–1885.

39 Cf. end of Section I above, and fns. 5 and 6, with respect to the data on Zwischenverkehr after 1881.