IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpdc/9712001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Much Did the Liberty Shipbuilders Learn? New Evidence for an Old Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Thompson

    (University of Houston)

Abstract

This paper uses previously unavailable historical records to show that several assumptions central to a learning by doing explanation of productivity growth in the construction of Liberty ships during World War II are mistaken. Impressive increases in output per worker recorded at one of the largest shipyards in the program, Calship, are shown to be strongly associated with increases in capital intensity and with a reduction in quality, where the latter is measured by the probability of a ship developing serious fractures that threatened the lives of its crew. Capital deepening and quality change, in conjunction with changes in production technologies and capacity utilization, account for virtually all the increase in labor productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Thompson, 1997. "How Much Did the Liberty Shipbuilders Learn? New Evidence for an Old Case Study," Development and Comp Systems 9712001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:9712001
    Note: Type of Document - Acrobat; prepared on IBM PC; to print on HP; pages: 30; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/dev/papers/9712/9712001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. K. J. Arrow, 1971. "The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: F. H. Hahn (ed.), Readings in the Theory of Growth, chapter 11, pages 131-149, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. A. M. Spence, 1981. "The Learning Curve and Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(1), pages 49-70, Spring.
    3. Krugman, Paul, 1987. "The narrow moving band, the Dutch disease, and the competitive consequences of Mrs. Thatcher : Notes on trade in the presence of dynamic scale economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 41-55, October.
    4. Linda Argote & Sara L. Beckman & Dennis Epple, 1990. "The Persistence and Transfer of Learning in Industrial Settings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(2), pages 140-154, February.
    5. Dutton, John M. & Thomas, Annie & Butler, John E., 1984. "The History of Progress Functions as a Managerial Technology," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 204-233, July.
    6. Boyan Jovanovic & Yaw Nyarko, 1995. "A Bayesian Learning Model Fitted to a Variety of Empirical Learning Curves," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1995 Micr), pages 247-305.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thompson, Peter, 2010. "Learning by Doing," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 429-476, Elsevier.
    2. Anelí Bongers, 2017. "Learning and forgetting in the jet fighter aircraft industry," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-19, September.
    3. Jim Bessen, 1997. "Productivity Adjustments and Learning-by-Doing as Human Capital," Working Papers 97-17, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    4. Koji Kotani & Makoto Kakinaka, 2017. "Some implications of environmental regulation on social welfare under learning-by-doing of eco-products," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(1), pages 121-149, January.
    5. Zhang, Shichen & Zhang, Jianxiong, 2018. "Contract preference with stochastic cost learning in a two-period supply chain under asymmetric information," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 226-247.
    6. Ryan Kellogg, 2011. "Learning by Drilling: Interfirm Learning and Relationship Persistence in the Texas Oilpatch," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1961-2004.
    7. Kogan, Konstantin & El Ouardighi, Fouad & Herbon, Avi, 2017. "Production with learning and forgetting in a competitive environment," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 52-62.
    8. Tombak, Mihkel M., 2006. "Strategic asymmetry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 339-350, November.
    9. Laura J. Kornish & Steven A. Lippman & John W. Mamer, 2011. "Search and the introduction of improved technologies," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(6), pages 578-594, September.
    10. Apurba Shee & Spiro E. Stefanou, 2016. "Bounded learning-by-doing and sources of firm level productivity growth in colombian food manufacturing industry," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 185-197, December.
    11. Yuichiro Kamada & Fuhito Kojima, 2013. "Voter Preferences, Polarization, and Electoral Policies," Discussion Papers 12-021, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    12. Gavin Sinclair & Steven Klepper & Wesley Cohen, 2000. "What's Experience Got to Do With It? Sources of Cost Reduction in a Large Specialty Chemicals Producer," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(1), pages 28-45, January.
    13. Ngwenyama, Ojelanki & Guergachi, Aziz & McLaren, Tim, 2007. "Using the learning curve to maximize IT productivity: A decision analysis model for timing software upgrades," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 524-535, February.
    14. C. Lanier Benkard, 2000. "A Dynamic Analysis of the Market for Wide-Bodied Commercial Aircraft," NBER Working Papers 7710, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Makoto Kakinaka & Koji Kotani, 2006. "Promotion of Eco-Products and Environmental Regulation with Learning-by-Doing," Working Papers EMS_2006_07, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    16. Benkard, C. Lanier, 2000. "A Dynamic Analysis of the Market for Wide-Bodied Commercial Aircraft," Research Papers 1636, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    17. Guido Fioretti, 2007. "A connectionist model of the organizational learning curve," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, March.
    18. Michele Boldrin & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1988. "Learning-By-Doing, International Trade and Growth: A Note," UCLA Economics Working Papers 462, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Bar-Ilan, Avner & Strange, William C., 1998. "A model of sequential investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 437-463, March.
    20. Lafond, François & Bailey, Aimee Gotway & Bakker, Jan David & Rebois, Dylan & Zadourian, Rubina & McSharry, Patrick & Farmer, J. Doyne, 2018. "How well do experience curves predict technological progress? A method for making distributional forecasts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 104-117.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Growth Learning by doing; Liberty ships;

    JEL classification:

    • N6 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:9712001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.