IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/ereveh/v10y2006i01p89-108_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A very peculiar practice: Underemployment in Britain during the interwar years

Author

Listed:
  • BOWDEN, S.
  • HIGGINS, D.M.
  • PRICE, C.

Abstract

This article presents new evidence on the determinants of short-time working in Britain during the interwar period. Using a selection of manufacturing industries we test the impact that output volatility, the benefit-wage ratio, and trade union density had on short-time working. We find that persistence effects (captured by lagged values of output fluctuation) and gender differences in trade union density were important for a number of industries. However, perhaps our most interesting finding is that the benefit-wage ratio also exercised a statistically significant impact on short-time working. This suggests that the Benjamin-Kochin thesis may be important after all. In other words, the army of short-time workers that existed in Britain between the Wars may, indeed, have been a ‘volunteer army’.

Suggested Citation

  • Bowden, S. & Higgins, D.M. & Price, C., 2006. "A very peculiar practice: Underemployment in Britain during the interwar years," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 89-108, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ereveh:v:10:y:2006:i:01:p:89-108_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1361491605001590/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gregory Ponthiere, 2008. "Can underemployment persist in an expanding economy? Clues from a non-Walrasian OLG model with endogenous longevity," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 97-124, June.
    2. Crafts, Nicholas & Mills, Terence C, 2012. "Rearmament to the Rescue? New Estimates of the Impact of ‘Keynesian’ Policies in 1930s’ Britain," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 103, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    3. Jason Lennard & Meredith M. Paker, 2023. "Devaluation, Exports, and Recovery from the Great Depression," Discussion Papers 2403, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    4. repec:dgr:rugggd:gd-108 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jong, H. de & Woltjer, P., 2009. "A Comparison of Real Output and Productivity for British and American Manufacturing in 1935," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-108, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.

    More about this item

    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:cup:ereveh:v:10:y:2006:i:01:p:89-108_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ere .

    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.