The Market For Skill

Download or read book The Market for Skill written by Patrick Wallis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2025-03-04 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new economic history of the largest institution for the production of human capital in the premodern economy: apprenticeship. Apprenticeship dominated skill formation from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. Years spent training with a skilled master were a nearly universal experience for young workers in crafts and trade. Apprenticeship is seen by some as a key ingredient in the emergence of modern growth. To others, it was inflexible and conservative. Analyzing the records of hundreds of thousands of individual apprenticeships between 1500 and 1800, The Market for Skill tells the story of how apprenticeship worked and the way it fuelled economic growth in England. Patrick Wallis's book uncovers the activities of apprentices and masters, the strategies of ambitious parents, the interventions of guilds, and the decisions of town officials, to show how apprenticeship contributed to the transformation of England. He presents a new account of the way the market for skill contributed to the growth of cities, the movement of workers from farms to manufacturing, and the spread of new technologies and productive knowledge. Apprenticeship succeeded because it was flexible and enforced by institutions, especially urban courts, that allowed apprentices to change their minds. Apprenticeship provided a vital channel for training that families could trust. Not everyone could access it, and not everyone had an equal chance of success, but it was open to most young people, whatever their background. Exploring apprenticeship across three centuries, The Market for Skill shows how the institutions and practices of training helped reshape the English economy"- Provided by publisher.