IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/126297.html

The sources of scale: large employers in Britain in 1881

Author

Listed:
  • Bennett, Robert J.
  • Hannah, Leslie

Abstract

The article assesses the relative weight of different sources of workforce size, using both relative marginal effects and proportion of variance explained for the 545 largest British firms in 1881. Despite data uncertainties, integration is shown as the largest contributor to scale. Integration with mining had even larger effects, raising employment by 35%. Internal capital intensity reduced labour for the majority of firms by about 4 workers per £10,000 capital, but much more for tramways. Place-based externalities had greatest marginal effects for agglomerations (measured by population size). Generally, sectoral localisation was insignificant, but for small localities with more than one firm in a single sector, firm size increased 26–30% compared to diversified localities. Local monopsony (measured by workforce proportion of local population) explained a large proportion of variance because it occurred in a large number of small places. Of other variables explored, only legal form is of major importance.

Suggested Citation

  • Bennett, Robert J. & Hannah, Leslie, 2024. "The sources of scale: large employers in Britain in 1881," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 126297, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:126297
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126297/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tom Nicholas, 2000. "Wealth Making in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century: The Rubinstein Hypothesis Revisited," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 155-168.
    2. Paul A. David, 1969. "Transport Innovation and Economic Growth: Professor Fogel on and off the Rails," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 22(3), pages 506-525, December.
    3. Les Hannah, 2014. "Corporations in the US and Europe 1790-1860," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(6), pages 865-899, September.
    4. Bresnahan, Timothy F & Reiss, Peter C, 1991. "Entry and Competition in Concentrated Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 977-1009, October.
    5. Graeme G. Acheson & Gareth Campbell & John D. Turner & Nadia Vanteeva, 2015. "Corporate ownership and control in Victorian Britain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 911-936, August.
    6. Nicholas Crafts, 2021. "Understanding productivity growth in the industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(2), pages 309-338, May.
    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. Leslie Hannah & Robert Bennett, 2022. "Large‐scale Victorian manufacturers: Reconstructing the lost 1881 UK employer census," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(3), pages 830-856, August.
    2. Tin Cheuk Leung & Kwok Ping Ping & Kevin K. Tsui, 2019. "What can deregulators deregulate? The case of electricity," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 1-32, August.
    3. Paul Seabright, 2005. "National and European Champions - Burden or Blessing?," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 6(02), pages 52-55, August.
    4. Arora, Ashish & Fosfuri, Andrea, 1999. "Exploring the internalization rationale for international investment: wholly owned subsidiary versus technology licensing in the worldwide chemical industry," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB 6430, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.
    5. Allende, Claudia & Atal, Juan Pablo & Carril, Rodrigo & Cuesta, José Ignacio & González-Lira, Andrés, 2024. "Drivers of public procurement prices: Evidence from pharmaceutical markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    6. Iain M. Cockburn & Megan J. MacGarvie, 2011. "Entry and Patenting in the Software Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 915-933, May.
    7. Nishida, Mitsukuni & Gil, Ricard, 2014. "Regulation, enforcement, and entry: Evidence from the Spanish local TV industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 11-23.
    8. Paul Ellickson & Sanjog Misra, 2012. "Enriching interactions: Incorporating outcome data into static discrete games," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, March.
    9. Toivanen, Otto & Waterson, Michael, 2000. "Empirical research on discrete choice game theory models of entry: An illustration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 985-992, May.
    10. Roberts, M. & Tybout, J., 1993. "An Empirical Model of Sunk Costs and the Decision to Export," Papers 4-93-3, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
    11. Christos Genakos & Mario Pagliero, 2022. "Competition and Pass-Through: Evidence from Isolated Markets," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 35-57, October.
    12. Kim, Donghyuk, 2023. "Market size, competition, and entrepreneurs’ location choices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    13. Raphael Corbi & Fabio Miessi Sanches, 2022. "Church Competition, Religious Subsidies and the Rise of Evangelicalism: a Dynamic Structural Analysis," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2022_09, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    14. Chen, Qifei & Wang, Meng, 2022. "Opening of high-speed rail and the consumer service industry: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 31-45.
    15. Shon M. Ferguson, 2015. "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 45-61, February.
    16. Turner, John D., 2017. "The development of English company law before 1900," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2017-01, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    17. Maarten Janssen & Eric Rasmusen, 2002. "Bertrand Competition Under Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 11-21, March.
    18. Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2014. "Highway to Hitler," ECON - Working Papers 156, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    19. Lukasz Grzybowski & Marc Bourreau & Angela Munoz-Acevedo, 2024. "The Efficiency of State Aid for the Deployment of High-Speed Broadband: Evidence from the French Market," ERSA Working Paper Series, Economic Research Southern Africa, vol. 0.
    20. Dave Donaldson & Richard Hornbeck, 2016. "Railroads and American Economic Growth: A "Market Access" Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 799-858.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    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:ehl:lserod:126297. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.