A'Hearn pig-iron series
Brian A’Hearn’s compiled long-run pig-iron output series for Britain (and, in subsequent work, for several other major producers including Germany, France, the US, and Belgium). Pig iron is a useful single-commodity industrial-output proxy because (a) it is energy-intensive and so directly tracks the coal/coke transition; (b) it is well-documented in firm-level and tax records; and (c) its share of total industrial value-added rises rapidly through the IR and second-IR periods, so the series carries information about industrialization itself, not just about a single sector.
Used as a supporting dataset across multiple positions in the Industrial Revolution debate, particularly in arguments about the timing of the coke-iron transition and about the comparative pace of British vs. continental industrialization.
Coverage
Section titled “Coverage”- Time: 1700s through the 20th century, varying by country.
- Variables: pig-iron output (tons), coke vs. charcoal share, with country-level granularity.
- Geography: Britain primarily, plus comparative continental and US series.
Source
Section titled “Source”A’Hearn, “Anthropometric Evidence on Living Standards in Northern Italy” (Journal of Economic History, 2003) and various papers; the British pig-iron series is also reproduced in Crafts and in the Mitchell British Historical Statistics.