Comparative productivity levels in manufacturing since the Industrial Revolution: Lessons from Britain, America, Germany and Japan

Abstract This paper shows that levels and trends of comparative labour productivity in manufacturing differ from levels and trends of labour productivity at the whole economy level, suggesting that structure and structural change play an important role in the growth process. Persistent differences in productivity levels are related to the choice between standardised mass production and craft flexible production technologies. These technological choices are shown to affect the development of human capital, because of the different requirements of the two systems for shopfloor. management and research skills.

[1]  David J. Jeremy.  Transatlantic Industrial Revolution: The Diffusion of Textile Technologies between Britain and America, 1790-1830s , 1981 .

[2]  P. Romer.  Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth , 1986, Journal of Political Economy.

[3]  W. Hoffmann,et al.  Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts , 1965 .

[4]  Alan M. Taylor,et al.  Productivity Growth and Machinery Investment: A Long-Run Look, 1870–1980 , 1992, The Journal of Economic History.

[5]  C. Harley.  Skilled labour and the choice of technique in Edwardian industry , 1974 .

[6]  S. Bowden.  Demand and Supply Constraints in the Inter-War UK Car Industry: Did the Manufacturers Get it Right? , 1991 .

[7]  The Resolution of the Labor Scarcity Paradox , 1984 .

[8]  Elise S. Brezis,et al.  Leapfrogging in international competition: A theory of cycles in national technological leadership , 1993 .

[9]  C. Sabel,et al.  The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity , 1984 .

[10]  Partha Dasgupta,et al.  Economic policy and technological performance , 1987 .

[11]  P. Temin.  Labor Scarcity in America , 1971 .

[12]  B. Seely,et al.  American Technology and the British Vehicle Industry , 1987 .

[13]  A. Maddison,et al.  Dynamic forces in capitalist development , 1991 .

[14]  William Lazonick,et al.  Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor , 1992 .

[15]  Nathan Rosenberg,et al.  The American System Of Manufactures , 1969 .

[16]  W. Lazonick,et al.  Industrial Relations and Technical Change: The Case of the Self-Acting Mule , 1979 .

[17]  Roderick Floud,et al.  The Adolescence of American Engineering Competition, 1860-1900 , 1974 .

[18]  Stephen Ackroyd,et al.  The Japanisation of British industry , 1988 .

[19]  Paul R. Milgrom,et al.  The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization , 1990 .

[20]  A. Atkinson,et al.  A New View of Technological Change , 1969 .

[21]  M. Baily,et al.  Innovation And The Productivity Crisis , 1988 .

[22]  W. Davidson.  Patterns of factor-saving innovation in the industrialized world , 1976 .

[23]  Gareth P. Dyas,et al.  The Emerging European Enterprise , 1976 .

[24]  British and American Manufacturing Productivity. , 1958 .

[25]  S. Broadberry.  Technological Leadership and Productivity Leadership in Manufacturing Since the Industrial Revolution: Implications for the Convergence Debate , 1994 .

[26]  M. Gilbert,et al.  An international comparison of national products and the purchasing power of currencies , 1953 .

[27]  W. Arthur,et al.  INCREASING RETURNS AND LOCK-IN BY HISTORICAL EVENTS , 1989 .

[28]  P. Romer,et al.  Human Capital and Growth: Theory and Evidence , 1989 .

[29]  A. Field.  On the Unimportance of Machinery , 1985 .

[30]  Paul Krugman,et al.  The narrow moving band, the Dutch disease, and the competitive consequences of Mrs. Thatcher : Notes on trade in the presence of dynamic scale economies , 1987 .

[31]  Risk and technological innovation : American manufacturing methods during the nineteenth century , 1959 .

[32]  David S. Landes,et al.  The Unbound Prometheus , 1969 .

[33]  L. Rostás,et al.  Comparative productivity in British and American industry , 1949 .

[34]  Lawrence G. Franko,et al.  The European multinationals : a renewed challenge to American and British big business , 1976 .

[35]  Philip M. Marcus,et al.  The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business , 1979 .

[36]  R. Giffen.  The Growth of Capital , 1970 .

[37]  D. Channon.  The strategy and structure of British enterprise , 1973 .

[38]  W. Scott,et al.  Tracking the Giant Corporation@@@Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. , 1991 .

[39]  B. Ark.  Comparative in British and American Manufacturing , 1992 .

[40]  Stephen N. Broadberry,et al.  Human Capital and Productivity in Manufacturing during the Twentieth Century: Britain, Germany and the United States , 1994 .

[41]  Industrial growth and world trade : an empirical study of trends in production, consumption and trade in manufactures from 1899-1959 with a discussion of probable future trends , 1965 .

[42]  John W. Kendrick,et al.  Productivity Trends in the United States. , 1962 .

[43]  Nathan Rosenberg,et al.  Technology and American Economic Growth , 2020 .

[44]  William Lazonick,et al.  The Decline of the British Economy. , 1987 .

[45]  M. O’Mahony.  Productivity Levels in British and German Manufacturing Industry , 1992, National Institute Economic Review.

[46]  J. R. Harris,et al.  Economic Maturity and Entrepreneurial Decline: British Iron and Steel, 1870-1913 , 1973 .

[47]  Stephen Broadberry,et al.  Comparative Productivity in British and American Manufacturing during the Nineteenth Century , 1994 .

[48]  Dynamic Factors in Industrial Productivity. , 1957 .

[49]  Alfred D. Chandler,et al.  Managerial Hierarchies, Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise , 1981 .

[50]  P. S. Florence,et al.  The brewing industry, 1886-1951 : an economic study , 1960 .

[51]  L. Summers,et al.  Equipment Investment and Economic Growth , 1990 .

[52]  M. Dertouzos,et al.  Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge , 1989 .

[53]  A. Maddison.  GROWTH AND SLOWDOWN IN ADVANCED CAPITALIST ECONOMIES - TECHNIQUES OF QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT , 1987 .

[54]  P. David,et al.  Technical choice innovation and economic growth , 1975 .

[55]  R. Solow.  TECHNICAL CHANGE AND THE AGGREGATE PRODUCTION FUNCTION , 1957 .

[56]  J. Foreman-Peck.  The American Challenge of the Twenties: Multinationals and the European Motor Industry , 1982, The Journal of Economic History.

[57]  F. Benham.  Industrialisation and Foreign Trade. , 1946 .

[58]  P. David.  Clio and the Economics of QWERTY , 1985 .

[59]  J. Zeitlin,et al.  The Power to Manage: Employers and Industrial Relations in Comparative- Historical Perspective. , 1992 .

[60]  D. Edgerton,et al.  British industrial research and development before 1945 , 1994 .

[61]  A. Field,et al.  Land Abundance, Interest/Profit Rates, and Nineteenth-Century American and British Technology , 1983, The Journal of Economic History.

[62]  R. Lucas.  Making a miracle , 1993 .

[63]  Charles H. Feinstein,et al.  National Income Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom 1855-1965. , 1972 .

[64]  Werner Schlote,et al.  British overseas trade from 1700 to the 1930s , 1952 .

[65]  B. Ark.  Comparative Productivity in British and American Manufacturing , 1992 .

[66]  J. Hansen.  The Motor Vehicle Industry , 1971 .

[67]  Stephen Broadberry,et al.  Manufacturing and the Convergence Hypothesis: What the Long-Run Data Show , 1993, The Journal of Economic History.

[68]  Alfred D. Chandler.  The Growth of the Transnational Industrial Firm in the United States and the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis , 1980 .

[69]  Henry Ergas,et al.  Economic policy and technological performance: The importance of technology policy , 1987 .

[70]  Bernard Elbaum.  Why Apprenticeship Persisted in Britain But Not in the United States , 1989, The Journal of Economic History.

[71]  Gary R. Saxonhouse,et al.  Stubborn mules and vertical integration: the disappearing constraint? , 1987 .

[72]  N. Rosenberg,et al.  The Enfield Arsenal in Theory and History , 1968 .

[73]  M. Abramovitz.  Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind , 1986, The Journal of Economic History.

[74]  R. Lucas.  On the Mechanics of Economic Development , 1988 .

[75]  Roderick Floud,et al.  The Growth of British Industry , 1978 .

[76]  A. Maddison,et al.  Phases of capitalist development , 1983 .

[77]  W. Ashworth,et al.  Retailing Revolution. A History of Multiple Retailing in the Food Trades Based upon the Allied Suppliers Group of Companies. , 1967 .

[78]  James Montgomery.  The cotton manufacture of the United States : contrasted and compared with that of Great Britain , 1970 .

[79]  Richard R. Nelson,et al.  The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership: The Postwar Era in Historical Perspective , 1992 .

[80]  E. Lorenz.  An Evolutionary Explanation for Competitive Decline: The British Shipbuilding Industry, 1890–1970 , 1991, The Journal of Economic History.

[81]  J. Odling-Smee,et al.  British Economic Growth, 1856-1973 , 1982 .