New Estimates Of British Unemployment, 1870 1913

We present new estimates of the British industrial unemployment rate for 1870 1913, which improve on the Board of Trade s prior estimates. We use similar sources, but our series includes additional industrial sectors, allows for short-time working, and aggregates the various sectors using appropriate labor-force weights from the census. The resulting index suggests a rate of industrial unemployment that was generally higher, but less volatile, than the board s index. We then adjust our series to an economywide basis, and construct a consistent time series of overall unemployment for 1870 1999.