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How Much Did The Liberty Shipbuilders Forget?

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Author Info
Peter Thompson ()

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Abstract

This paper produces new estimates of the rate of organizational forgetting in the well-known case study of US wartime ship production. I show that estimation is easily colored by problems of unobserved product heterogeneity and sensitivity to specification of the learning curve. Using data recently constructed from primary sources at the National Archives, I produce new estimates of organizational forgetting at the rate of no more than 4 percent, and possibly less than zero percent, per month. These are much smaller rates than previously reported. However, the paper also stresses the fact that our ability to obtain reliable estimates of rates of organizational forgetting is extremely limited.

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File URL: http://www.fiu.edu/orgs/economics/wp2003/03-01.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function: Revised version, 2006
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Florida International University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 0301.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 25 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fiu:wpaper:0301

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Miami, FL 33199
Phone: (305) 348-2316
Fax: (305) 348-1524
Web page: http://www.fiu.edu/orgs/economics/
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Related research
Keywords: learning by doing; organizational forgetting; technological change;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
O33 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. C. Lanier Benkard, 2000. "Learning and Forgetting: The Dynamics of Aircraft Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1034-1054, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Peter Thompson, 2001. "How Much Did the Liberty Shipbuilders Learn? New Evidence for an Old Case Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(1), pages 103-137, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Rebecca Achee Thornton & Peter Thompson, 2001. "Learning from Experience and Learning from Others: An Exploration of Learning and Spillovers in Wartime Shipbuilding," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1350-1368, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Kazuhiro Mishina, 1999. "Learning by New Experiences: Revisiting the Flying Fortress Learning Curve," NBER Chapters, in: Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries, pages 145-184 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  5. Auerswald, Philip & Kauffman, Stuart & Lobo, Jose & Shell, Karl, 2000. "The production recipes approach to modeling technological innovation: An application to learning by doing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 389-450, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Besanko, David & Doraszelski, Ulrich & Kryukov, Yaroslav & Satterthwaite, Mark, 2007. "Learning-by-Doing, Organizational Forgetting and Industry Dynamics," CEPR Discussion Papers 6160, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Peter Thompson, 2008. "Learning by Doing," Working Papers 0806, Florida International University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats, 2008. "Variation in Experience and Team Familiarity: Addressing the Knowledge Acquisition-Application Problem," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-035, Harvard Business School. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-3.

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