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Roderick Floud

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I am an economic historian, editor of The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain and author of books and articles on quantitative methods and anthropometric history. I was Provost of London Metropolitan University and Gresham College London and President of Universities UK. My current research topic is the economic history of gardening and An Economic History of the English Garden was published by Allen Lane in November 2019
Phone: (+44) 1844 291086
Address: 15 Flint Street, Haddenham, Aylesbury, Bucks. HP17 8AL, UK

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Papers by Roderick Floud

Height, Weight, and Body Mass of the British Population Since 1820

The Physical State of the British Working Class, 1870-1914: Evidence from Army Recruits

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain Volume I: Industrialisation 1700-1860

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2004

This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic his... more This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic history. It is a highly worthy successor to volume 3 of The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, 2nd ed. (1994), edited by Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, and improves upon it in certain respects. Notable strengths of the new volume include its expanded treatment of services and its incorporation of a wider range of theoretical perspectives. There are especially useful chapters on the financial services sector since 1945 (Katherine Watson), the welfare state, income, and living standards (Paul Johnson), and on regional development and policy (Peter Scott). Valuable contributions are also made in each of the other chapters, which include the wartime economy, 1939-1945 (Peter Howlett), British economic growth since 1949 (Michael Kitson), manufacturing performance (Stephen Broadberry), state ownership of industry (Leslie Hannah), employment, education, and human capital (Mary O'Mahony), money and monetary policy since 1945 (Susan Howson), economic policy (Jim Tomlinson), the rise of the service economy (Robert Millward), the impact of Europe (Larry Neal), technology in postwar Britain (Nick von Tunzelmann), British fiscal policy since 1939 (Tom Clark and Andrew Dilnot), and industrial relations (William Brown). Examples of the volume's wider theoretical scope can be found in several chapters. Kitson explicitly discusses alternative approaches to conceptualizing economic growth. Other authors portray economic behavior and outcomes that do not fit neatly with neoclassical models (for example, "the apparently irrational behaviour" of giltedged investors, mentioned by Howson on p. 159, and the inability of market adjustment processes to remove regional disparities, underscored by Scott). Setting a wider context for Watson's chapter on financial services, Millward addresses the expansion of labor-intensive consumer services, the rise of producer services, and the unanticipated surge in service exports. Financial and business services were the biggest net earners by the 1990s. After describing measurement problems in some detail, he compares British performance in services with that in the United States, France, and Germany. Brown's chapter on industrial relations provides a concise and stimulating overview. While he suggests (p. 404) that "it may be trite to say that employers get the trade unions they deserve," he argues that it was employers' "lack of solidarity that led to the break-up of industry-level bargaining, and their inadequate controls that encouraged unprecedented workplace bargaining in the 1960s and 1970s." The 1980s and 1990s saw collective bargaining in retreat. Brown discusses a range of possible consequences, positive and negative, including the sharp increase in income inequality in Britain at the end of the twentieth century, which he attributes in part to the weakening of trade unions. Two omissions can be noted. O'Mahony's chapter focuses on human capital, education, and training. The volume also might have included a chapter on immigration and its implications for labor markets, entrepreneurship, and economic policy in postwar Britain. More treatment of the loss of empire might also have been warranted. Although decolonization appears in some chapters, the editors have chosen to highlight instead Britain's changing relationship with the European continent. That relationship

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain. Volume II: Economic Maturity 1860-1939

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2004

This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic his... more This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic history. It is a highly worthy successor to volume 3 of The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, 2nd ed. (1994), edited by Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, and improves upon it in certain respects. Notable strengths of the new volume include its expanded treatment of services and its incorporation of a wider range of theoretical perspectives. There are especially useful chapters on the financial services sector since 1945 (Katherine Watson), the welfare state, income, and living standards (Paul Johnson), and on regional development and policy (Peter Scott). Valuable contributions are also made in each of the other chapters, which include the wartime economy, 1939-1945 (Peter Howlett), British economic growth since 1949 (Michael Kitson), manufacturing performance (Stephen Broadberry), state ownership of industry (Leslie Hannah), employment, education, and human capital (Mary O'Mahony), money and monetary policy since 1945 (Susan Howson), economic policy (Jim Tomlinson), the rise of the service economy (Robert Millward), the impact of Europe (Larry Neal), technology in postwar Britain (Nick von Tunzelmann), British fiscal policy since 1939 (Tom Clark and Andrew Dilnot), and industrial relations (William Brown). Examples of the volume's wider theoretical scope can be found in several chapters. Kitson explicitly discusses alternative approaches to conceptualizing economic growth. Other authors portray economic behavior and outcomes that do not fit neatly with neoclassical models (for example, "the apparently irrational behaviour" of giltedged investors, mentioned by Howson on p. 159, and the inability of market adjustment processes to remove regional disparities, underscored by Scott). Setting a wider context for Watson's chapter on financial services, Millward addresses the expansion of labor-intensive consumer services, the rise of producer services, and the unanticipated surge in service exports. Financial and business services were the biggest net earners by the 1990s. After describing measurement problems in some detail, he compares British performance in services with that in the United States, France, and Germany. Brown's chapter on industrial relations provides a concise and stimulating overview. While he suggests (p. 404) that "it may be trite to say that employers get the trade unions they deserve," he argues that it was employers' "lack of solidarity that led to the break-up of industry-level bargaining, and their inadequate controls that encouraged unprecedented workplace bargaining in the 1960s and 1970s." The 1980s and 1990s saw collective bargaining in retreat. Brown discusses a range of possible consequences, positive and negative, including the sharp increase in income inequality in Britain at the end of the twentieth century, which he attributes in part to the weakening of trade unions. Two omissions can be noted. O'Mahony's chapter focuses on human capital, education, and training. The volume also might have included a chapter on immigration and its implications for labor markets, entrepreneurship, and economic policy in postwar Britain. More treatment of the loss of empire might also have been warranted. Although decolonization appears in some chapters, the editors have chosen to highlight instead Britain's changing relationship with the European continent. That relationship

The Economic History of Britain since 1700

Technical Education 1850-1914: Speculations on Human Capital Formation

In the late 19th century, the industrial countries of Europe and North America developed very dif... more In the late 19th century, the industrial countries of Europe and North America developed very different systems of technical education for the workforce. Some emphasised full-time instruction, largely state-financed, while others relied on part time instruction, financed by employees and seen as a supplement to work-place training. The paper suggests that the insights of human capital theory are useful in describing and understanding these systems and that the differences between them should be seen as rational responses to differing economic and social structures rather than to irrationality on the part of governments or entrepreneurs. Part-time training in Britain, in particular, is seen as suited to skills and educational level of British workers and to a fluid system of promotion within British industry.

Quantitative History and People's History: Two Methods in Conflict?

History Workshop Journal, 1984

It was fashionable some years ago for historians to speak of the quantitative revolution in their... more It was fashionable some years ago for historians to speak of the quantitative revolution in their subject and to look forward, either with hope or with foreboding, to the day when history, like geography, sociology, and other social sciences before it, would be dominated by practitioners skilled in quantitative methods. New questions would be asked, new methods used, new sources exploited, and new discoveries made. In the process, those historians without training in quantitative methods would be swept from the battlegrounds of the subject. They would be forced to retreat either into the antiquarianism within which many quantitative historians, privately, located them or they would be forced to undergo a painful process of retooling in a struggle to avoid technological obsolescence. It was a reasonable expectation in those days that a statistical training would become as essential to a historian as a training in foreign languages or experience in burrowing for sources in the record office: As Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie put it in 1968, by the 1980s “the historian will be a programmer or he will be nothing” (Le Roy Ladurie, 1968). As a result, quantitative historians gathering in the early 1970s thought that the quantitative revolution would be largely complete as the world entered the 1980s.

List of Publications on the Economic History of Great Britain and Ireland PUBLISHED IN 1965

The Economic History Review, 1967

The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700

The Changing body: health, nutrition, and human development in the Western world since 1700

Choice Reviews Online, Dec 1, 2011

Front matter, acknowledgments, table of contents

NBER Chapters, Jun 3, 2011

Health, Height and Welfare: Britain 1700-1980

The analysis of long-term trends in nutritional status, mortality, and economic growth

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2011

Height, health, and mortality in continental Europe, 1700–2100

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2011

The Changing Body

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2011

Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever b... more Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever before in human history. However, it is only recently that historians, economists, human biologists, and demographers have linked the changing size, shape, and capability of the human body to economic and demographic change. This fascinating and groundbreaking book presents an accessible introduction to the field of anthropometric history, surveying the causes and consequences of changes in health and mortality, diet, and the disease environment in Europe and the United States since 1700. It examines how we define and measure health and nutrition as well as key issues such as whether increased longevity contributes to greater productivity or, instead, imposes burdens on society through the higher costs of health care and pensions. The result is a major contribution to economic and social history with important implications for today's developing world and the health trends of the future.

Long-Term Trends in Health, Welfare, and Economic Growth in the United States

The Economic History of Britain since 1700; Vol. I: 1700-1860

The Economic Journal, 1982

The Myth of the Great Depression, 1873-1896

The Economic History Review, 1969

The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, 2nd ed. Vol. I, 1700-1860

The Economic History Review, 1995

An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Historians

The American Historical Review, 1974

Height, Weight, and Body Mass of the British Population Since 1820

The Physical State of the British Working Class, 1870-1914: Evidence from Army Recruits

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain Volume I: Industrialisation 1700-1860

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2004

This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic his... more This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic history. It is a highly worthy successor to volume 3 of The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, 2nd ed. (1994), edited by Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, and improves upon it in certain respects. Notable strengths of the new volume include its expanded treatment of services and its incorporation of a wider range of theoretical perspectives. There are especially useful chapters on the financial services sector since 1945 (Katherine Watson), the welfare state, income, and living standards (Paul Johnson), and on regional development and policy (Peter Scott). Valuable contributions are also made in each of the other chapters, which include the wartime economy, 1939-1945 (Peter Howlett), British economic growth since 1949 (Michael Kitson), manufacturing performance (Stephen Broadberry), state ownership of industry (Leslie Hannah), employment, education, and human capital (Mary O'Mahony), money and monetary policy since 1945 (Susan Howson), economic policy (Jim Tomlinson), the rise of the service economy (Robert Millward), the impact of Europe (Larry Neal), technology in postwar Britain (Nick von Tunzelmann), British fiscal policy since 1939 (Tom Clark and Andrew Dilnot), and industrial relations (William Brown). Examples of the volume's wider theoretical scope can be found in several chapters. Kitson explicitly discusses alternative approaches to conceptualizing economic growth. Other authors portray economic behavior and outcomes that do not fit neatly with neoclassical models (for example, "the apparently irrational behaviour" of giltedged investors, mentioned by Howson on p. 159, and the inability of market adjustment processes to remove regional disparities, underscored by Scott). Setting a wider context for Watson's chapter on financial services, Millward addresses the expansion of labor-intensive consumer services, the rise of producer services, and the unanticipated surge in service exports. Financial and business services were the biggest net earners by the 1990s. After describing measurement problems in some detail, he compares British performance in services with that in the United States, France, and Germany. Brown's chapter on industrial relations provides a concise and stimulating overview. While he suggests (p. 404) that "it may be trite to say that employers get the trade unions they deserve," he argues that it was employers' "lack of solidarity that led to the break-up of industry-level bargaining, and their inadequate controls that encouraged unprecedented workplace bargaining in the 1960s and 1970s." The 1980s and 1990s saw collective bargaining in retreat. Brown discusses a range of possible consequences, positive and negative, including the sharp increase in income inequality in Britain at the end of the twentieth century, which he attributes in part to the weakening of trade unions. Two omissions can be noted. O'Mahony's chapter focuses on human capital, education, and training. The volume also might have included a chapter on immigration and its implications for labor markets, entrepreneurship, and economic policy in postwar Britain. More treatment of the loss of empire might also have been warranted. Although decolonization appears in some chapters, the editors have chosen to highlight instead Britain's changing relationship with the European continent. That relationship

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain. Volume II: Economic Maturity 1860-1939

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2004

This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic his... more This clear and accessible textbook addresses key issues in twentieth-century British economic history. It is a highly worthy successor to volume 3 of The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, 2nd ed. (1994), edited by Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, and improves upon it in certain respects. Notable strengths of the new volume include its expanded treatment of services and its incorporation of a wider range of theoretical perspectives. There are especially useful chapters on the financial services sector since 1945 (Katherine Watson), the welfare state, income, and living standards (Paul Johnson), and on regional development and policy (Peter Scott). Valuable contributions are also made in each of the other chapters, which include the wartime economy, 1939-1945 (Peter Howlett), British economic growth since 1949 (Michael Kitson), manufacturing performance (Stephen Broadberry), state ownership of industry (Leslie Hannah), employment, education, and human capital (Mary O'Mahony), money and monetary policy since 1945 (Susan Howson), economic policy (Jim Tomlinson), the rise of the service economy (Robert Millward), the impact of Europe (Larry Neal), technology in postwar Britain (Nick von Tunzelmann), British fiscal policy since 1939 (Tom Clark and Andrew Dilnot), and industrial relations (William Brown). Examples of the volume's wider theoretical scope can be found in several chapters. Kitson explicitly discusses alternative approaches to conceptualizing economic growth. Other authors portray economic behavior and outcomes that do not fit neatly with neoclassical models (for example, "the apparently irrational behaviour" of giltedged investors, mentioned by Howson on p. 159, and the inability of market adjustment processes to remove regional disparities, underscored by Scott). Setting a wider context for Watson's chapter on financial services, Millward addresses the expansion of labor-intensive consumer services, the rise of producer services, and the unanticipated surge in service exports. Financial and business services were the biggest net earners by the 1990s. After describing measurement problems in some detail, he compares British performance in services with that in the United States, France, and Germany. Brown's chapter on industrial relations provides a concise and stimulating overview. While he suggests (p. 404) that "it may be trite to say that employers get the trade unions they deserve," he argues that it was employers' "lack of solidarity that led to the break-up of industry-level bargaining, and their inadequate controls that encouraged unprecedented workplace bargaining in the 1960s and 1970s." The 1980s and 1990s saw collective bargaining in retreat. Brown discusses a range of possible consequences, positive and negative, including the sharp increase in income inequality in Britain at the end of the twentieth century, which he attributes in part to the weakening of trade unions. Two omissions can be noted. O'Mahony's chapter focuses on human capital, education, and training. The volume also might have included a chapter on immigration and its implications for labor markets, entrepreneurship, and economic policy in postwar Britain. More treatment of the loss of empire might also have been warranted. Although decolonization appears in some chapters, the editors have chosen to highlight instead Britain's changing relationship with the European continent. That relationship

The Economic History of Britain since 1700

Technical Education 1850-1914: Speculations on Human Capital Formation

In the late 19th century, the industrial countries of Europe and North America developed very dif... more In the late 19th century, the industrial countries of Europe and North America developed very different systems of technical education for the workforce. Some emphasised full-time instruction, largely state-financed, while others relied on part time instruction, financed by employees and seen as a supplement to work-place training. The paper suggests that the insights of human capital theory are useful in describing and understanding these systems and that the differences between them should be seen as rational responses to differing economic and social structures rather than to irrationality on the part of governments or entrepreneurs. Part-time training in Britain, in particular, is seen as suited to skills and educational level of British workers and to a fluid system of promotion within British industry.

Quantitative History and People's History: Two Methods in Conflict?

History Workshop Journal, 1984

It was fashionable some years ago for historians to speak of the quantitative revolution in their... more It was fashionable some years ago for historians to speak of the quantitative revolution in their subject and to look forward, either with hope or with foreboding, to the day when history, like geography, sociology, and other social sciences before it, would be dominated by practitioners skilled in quantitative methods. New questions would be asked, new methods used, new sources exploited, and new discoveries made. In the process, those historians without training in quantitative methods would be swept from the battlegrounds of the subject. They would be forced to retreat either into the antiquarianism within which many quantitative historians, privately, located them or they would be forced to undergo a painful process of retooling in a struggle to avoid technological obsolescence. It was a reasonable expectation in those days that a statistical training would become as essential to a historian as a training in foreign languages or experience in burrowing for sources in the record office: As Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie put it in 1968, by the 1980s “the historian will be a programmer or he will be nothing” (Le Roy Ladurie, 1968). As a result, quantitative historians gathering in the early 1970s thought that the quantitative revolution would be largely complete as the world entered the 1980s.

List of Publications on the Economic History of Great Britain and Ireland PUBLISHED IN 1965

The Economic History Review, 1967

The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700

The Changing body: health, nutrition, and human development in the Western world since 1700

Choice Reviews Online, Dec 1, 2011

Front matter, acknowledgments, table of contents

NBER Chapters, Jun 3, 2011

Health, Height and Welfare: Britain 1700-1980

The analysis of long-term trends in nutritional status, mortality, and economic growth

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2011

Height, health, and mortality in continental Europe, 1700–2100

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2011

The Changing Body

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2011

Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever b... more Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever before in human history. However, it is only recently that historians, economists, human biologists, and demographers have linked the changing size, shape, and capability of the human body to economic and demographic change. This fascinating and groundbreaking book presents an accessible introduction to the field of anthropometric history, surveying the causes and consequences of changes in health and mortality, diet, and the disease environment in Europe and the United States since 1700. It examines how we define and measure health and nutrition as well as key issues such as whether increased longevity contributes to greater productivity or, instead, imposes burdens on society through the higher costs of health care and pensions. The result is a major contribution to economic and social history with important implications for today's developing world and the health trends of the future.

Long-Term Trends in Health, Welfare, and Economic Growth in the United States

The Economic History of Britain since 1700; Vol. I: 1700-1860

The Economic Journal, 1982

The Myth of the Great Depression, 1873-1896

The Economic History Review, 1969

The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, 2nd ed. Vol. I, 1700-1860

The Economic History Review, 1995

An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Historians

The American Historical Review, 1974