Cotton textile prices revisited: a response to Cuenca Esteban

I welcome Cuenca Esteban's comment on my estimate of cotton textile prices during the industrial revolution. His exploration of the partial evidence on current values of exports and on the East India Company's sales contributed significantly to our understanding of price movements during this period. His work stimulated my research in the surviving firm records. None the less, I continue to believe that he is mistaken in his conclusions. Three issues require response. First, he argues that his cotton textile prices estimate seriously undermines the Crafts-Harley view of British economic growth. Second, he maintains that my procedure seriously underestimates the decline in the price of cotton textiles between the 1790s and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. And third, he asserts the superiority of his estimates based on export valuations. I wish to challenge all three of these assertions. The Crafts-Harley view, properly understood, would not be weakened if cotton textile prices, in fact, fell as fast as Cuenca asserts. However, analytic issues we have discussed but have not emphasized in our presentations would now need emphasis. Certainly gaps in the data make the series of cotton textile prices that I presented weaker than I could hope, but Cuenca's alternative calculations rely on a serious misunderstanding and some questionable assertions. Finally, his belief in the a priori superiority of the trade data cannot be accepted.