Broadberry, Stephen (2001) Openness and Britain’s productivity performance, 1870-1990: a sectoral analysis. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation. (Working papers (University of Warwick. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation)).

Preview

PDF WRAP_Broadberry_wp6701.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (272Kb)

Abstract

This paper uses a new data set of comparative productivity levels on a sectoral basis to shed light on the links between openness and productivity performance in Britain between 1870 and 1990. The key findings are: (1) As a result of the openness of the British economy, agriculture was unusually small in 19th century Britain, allowing resources to be deployed in the higher value added industrial and service sectors. This benefit of openness is rarely considered alongside the costs to British industry of retaining open markets when tariffs were being raised against British exports. (2) Many writers criticise the cosmopolitan service sector for neglecting domestic industry. However, this ignores the importance of the outward orientation of services for service sector productivity, and the growing importance of services for productivity performance overall. (3) The trend of British industrial performance was not improved by protection when it was applied in the 1930s, despite the claims of the tariff reformers. Furthermore, protective attempts to avoid de-industrialisation after World War II had an adverse effect on productivity performance in industry and in the aggregate economy.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Transparency in government -- Great Britain, Industrial productivity -- Great Britain, Trade blocs -- Great Britain, Protectionism -- Great Britain, Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- 19th century, Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- 20th century
Series Name:	Working papers (University of Warwick. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation)
Publisher:	University of Warwick. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	February 2001
Number:	No.67/
Number of Pages:	34
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	University of Warwick. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR)
References:	Abramovitz, M. and David, P.A. (1973), “Reinterpreting Economic Growth: Parables and Realities.” American Economic Review, 63, 428-439. Abramovitz, M. and David, P.A. (1996), “Convergence and Deferred Catch-up”, in Landau, R., Taylor, T. and Wright, G. (eds.), The Mosaic of Economic Growth, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 21-62. Aghion, P. and Howitt, P. (1998), Endogenous Growth Theory, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ashworth, W. (1986), The History of the British Coal Industry, Volume 5, 1946-1982: The Nationalized Industry, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bairoch, P. (1989), “European Trade Policy, 1815-1914”, in Mathias, P. and Pollard, S. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Volume VIII, The Industrial Economies: The Development of Economic and Social Policies, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1-160. Balke, N.S. and Gordon, R.J. (1989), “The estimation of prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence”, Journal of Political Economy, 97, 38-92. Best, M.H. and Humphries, J. (1986), “The City and Industrial Decline”, in Elbaum, B. and Lazonick, W. (eds.), The Decline of the British Economy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 223-239. Board of Trade (1904), British and Foreign Trade and Industrial Conditions, London: HMSO. Broadberry, S.N. (1986), The British Economy Between the Wars: A Macroeconomic Survey, Oxford: Blackwell. Broadberry, S.N. (1993), “Manufacturing and the Convergence Hypothesis: What the Long Run Data Show”, Journal of Economic History, 53, 772-795. Broadberry, S.N. (1997a), The Productivity Race: British Manufacturing in International Perspective, 1850-1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Broadberry, S.N. (1997b), “Forging Ahead, Falling Behind and Catching-Up: A Sectoral Analysis of Anglo-American Productivity Differences, 1870-1990”, Research in Economic History, 17, 1-37. Broadberry, S.N. (1997c), “Anglo-German Productivity Differences 1870-1990: A Sectoral Analysis”, European Review of Economic History, 1, 247-267. Broadberry, S.N. (1998), “How did the United States and Germany Overtake Britain? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870-1990”, Journal of Economic History, 58: 375-407. Broadberry, S.N. (2000), “Manufacturing”, in Crafts, N.F.R. and Woodward, N.W.C. (eds.), The British Economy Since 1945, (Second Edition), Oxford: Clarendon, (forthcoming). Broadberry, S.N. and Crafts, N.F.R. (1990), “The Impact of the Depression of the 1930s on Productive Potential in the United Kingdom”, European Economic Review, 34, 599- 607. Broadberry, S.N. and Crafts, N.F.R. (1992), “Britain’s Productivity Gap in the 1930s: Some Neglected Factors”, Journal of Economic History, 52, 531-558. Broadberry, S.N. and Crafts, N.F.R. (1996), “British Economic Policy and Industrial Performance in the Early Post-War Period”, Business History, 38(4), 65-91. Brown, J. (1987), Agriculture in England: A Survey of Farming, 1870-1947, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Buxton, N.K. (1978), The Economic Development of the British Coal Industry: From the Industrial Revolution to the Present Day, London: Batsford. Cairncross, A. (1992), The British Economy since 1945: Economic Policy and Performance, 1945-1990, Oxford: Blackwell. Capie, F. (1983), Depression and Protectionism: Britain Between the Wars, London: Allen & Unwin. Capie, F. (1994), Tariffs and Growth: Some Insights from the World Economy, 1850-1940, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Collins, M. (1990), Banks and Industrial Finance in Britain, 1800-1939, London: Macmillan. Collins, M. (1998), “English Bank Development within a European Context, 1870-1939”, Economic History Review, 51, 1-24. Crafts, N.F.R. (1996), “Deindustrialisation and Economic Growth”, Economic Journal, 106, 172-183. Dow, J.C.R. (1965), The Management of the British Economy, 1945-60, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drummond, I. (1974), Imperial Economic Policy, 1917-1939: Studies in Expansion and Protection, London: Allen & Unwin. Dunnett, P.J.S. (1980), The Decline of the British Motor Industry: The Effects of Government Policy, 1945-1979, London: Croom Helm. Edelstein, M. (1982), Overseas Investment in the Age of High Imperialism: The United Kingdom, 1850-1914, London: Methuen. El-Agraa, A.M. (1994), The Economics of the European Community, Fourth Edition, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Feinstein, C.H. (1972), National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855-1965, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foreman-Peck, J. (1991), “Trade and the Balance of Payments”, in Crafts, N.F.R. and Woodward, N.W.C. (eds.), The British Economy Since 1945, Oxford: Clarendon, 141- 179. Giersch, H., Paqué, K.H. and Schmieding, H. (1992), The Fading Miracle: Four Decades of Market Economy in Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greasley, D. and Oxley, L. (1996), “Discontinuities in Competitiveness: The Impact of the First World War on British Industry”, Economic History Review, 49, 82-100. Grunzel, J. (1916), Economic Protection, Oxford: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Clarendon Press. Hicks, J.R. (1935), “Annual Survey of Economic Theory: The Theory of Monopoly”, Econometrica, 3, 1-20. Hoffman, R.J.S. (1933), Great Britain and the German Trade Rivalry, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hoffmann, W.G. (1965), Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Holderness, B.A. (1985), British Agriculture Since 1945, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Imlah, A.H. (1958), Economic Elements in the Pax Britannica: Studies in British Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Irwin, D.A. (1996), Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kendrick, J.W. (1961), Productivity Trends in the United States, Princeton, NJ: National Bureau of Economic Research. Kennedy, W.P. (1987), Industrial Structure, Capital Markets and the Origins of British Economic Decline, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kitson, M. and Michie, J. (1996), “Britain’s Industrial Performance since 1960: Underinvestment and Relative Decline”, Economic Journal, 106, 196-212. Kitson, M. and Solomou, S. (1990), Protectionism and Economic Revival: The British Interwar Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leak, H. (1939), “The Carrying Trade of the British Shipping”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 102, 213-257. Liepmann, K. (1938), Tariff Levels and the Economic Unity of Europe, London: Allen & Unwin. Lindert, P.H. (1991), International Economics, Homewood, IL: Irwin. McCloskey, D.N. (1970), “Did Victorian Britain Fail?”, Economic History Review, 23, 446- 459. Marrison, A. (1996), British Business and Protection, 1903-1932, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Matthews, R.C.O., Feinstein, C.H. and Odling-Smee, J.C. (1982), British Economic Growth, 1856-1973, Oxford: Clarendon. Mills, T.C. (1991), “Are Output Fluctuations in the UK Transitory or Permanent?”, Manchester School, 59, 1-11. Millward, R. (1994), “Industrial and Commercial Performance Since 1950”, in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. (eds.), The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, Second Edition, Volume 3: 1939-1992, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 123-167. Mitchell, B.R. (1975), European Historical Statistics, 1750-1970, London: Macmillan. Mitchell, B.R. (1988), British Historical Statistics, (second edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moggridge, D.E, (1972), British Monetary Policy, 1924-1931: The Norman Conquest of $4.86, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ó Gráda, C. (1994), “British Agriculture, 1860-1914”, in Floud, D. and McCloskey, D. (eds.), The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, Second Edition, Volume 2: 1860-1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 145-172. O’Mahony, M. and Wagner, K. (1994), “Changing Fortunes: An Industry Study of British and German Productivity Growth Over Three Decades”, Report Series No.7, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London. Olson, M. (1963), The Economics of the Wartime Shortage: A History of British Food Supplies in the Napoleonic War and in World Wars I and II, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Plummer, A. (1951), International Combines in Modern Industry, London: Pitman. Pollard, S. (1984), The Wasting of the British Economy: British Economic Policy 1945 to the Present, Second Edition, London: Croom Helm. Reader, W.J. (1970), Imperial Chemical Industries: A History, Vol.1: The Forerunners, 1870-1926, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rostas, L. (1948), Comparative Productivity in British and American Industry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schlote, W. (1952), British Overseas Trade: From 1700 to the 1930s, Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, A.D. (1992), International Financial Markets: The Performance of Britain and its Rivals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taussig, F.W. (1892), The Tariff History of the United States, New York: Putnams. Webb, S.B. (1980), “Tariffs, Cartels, Technology, and Growth in the German Steel Industry, 1879 to 1914”, Journal of Economic History, 1980, 40, 309-329. Weiss, F.D. (1988) (ed.), Trade Policy in West Germany, Tübingen: Mohr. Whetham, E.H. (1978), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Volume VIII, 1914- 1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whisler, T.R. (1994), “The Outstanding Potential Market: The British Motor Industry and Europe, 1945-75”, Journal of Transport History, 15, 1-19.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2058

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item