IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/wpaper/20669.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

British economic policy and industrial performance in the early post-war period

Author

Listed:
  • Broadberry, Stephen
  • Crafts, Nicholas

Abstract

n analyses of British productivity performance in the 1930s, we have argued that the policy framework adopted in response to macroeconomic shocks was understandable and quite effective in ameliorating short-term adjustment problems but harmful in terms of its long-run supply side implications for the growth of productive potential (Broadberry and Crafts, 1990; 1992). In this paper we wish to develop similar themes in the context of the early postwar period. In particular, we suggest that the overriding need to cope with balance of payments problems and a monetary overhang in the context of the postwar settlement precluded desirable supply side reforms in the areas of industrial relations and competition policy. On the other hand, the macropolicy framework was highly successful in terms of its inflation and unemployment outcomes. When detailed analysis of cross sectional productivity performance in British manufacturing is undertaken, weaknesses are seen particularly in terms of human capital and in the incentive structure which the bargaining environment gave to firms and unions with respect to productivity improvement. Again, these problems are a continuation of the 1930s experience which tend to inhibit catch-up growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Broadberry, Stephen & Crafts, Nicholas, 1996. "British economic policy and industrial performance in the early post-war period," Economic History Working Papers 20669, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:20669
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20669/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Carlo Morelli, 2003. "The Development of Chain Store Retailing in the US and Britain 1850-1950," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 148, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    2. Stephen Broadberry, 2024. "British Economic Growth and Development," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 951-986, Springer.
    3. Crafts, Nicholas, 2021. "What Can We Learn from the UK’s Post-1945 Economic Reforms?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1370, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    4. Molinder, Jakob, 2019. "Why Was Unemployment so Low in Postwar Sweden? An Analysis with New Unemployment Data by Manufacturing Industry, 1935-1948," Lund Papers in Economic History 201, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    5. Stephen Broadberry & Nicholas Crafts, 2003. "UK productivity performance from 1950 to 1979: a restatement of the Broadberry‐Crafts view," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(4), pages 718-735, November.
    6. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "Creating Competitive Advantage: Policy Lessons from History," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 91, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    7. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "British relative economic decline revisited: The role of competition," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 17-29.
    8. Timothy Leunig, 2003. "A British industrial success: productivity in the Lancashire and New England cotton spinning industries a century ago," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(1), pages 90-117, February.
    9. Broadberry, Stephen & Crafts, Nicholas, 2010. "Openness, Protectionism And Britain’S Productivity Performance Over The Long-Run," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 36, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    10. Maylis Avaro, 2020. "Zombie International Currency: The Pound Sterling 1945-1973," IHEID Working Papers 03-2020, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised 27 Apr 2021.
    11. Crafts, Nicholas, 2011. "British Relative Economic Decline Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 8384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. George Symeonidis, 2011. "Competition and the relative productivity of large and small firms," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(24), pages 3253-3264.
    13. Crafts, Nicholas & O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2014. "Twentieth Century Growth*This research has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 249546.," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 263-346, Elsevier.
    14. Maurice Obstfeld, 2020. "Harry Johnson's “Case for flexible exchange rates”—50 years later," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(S1), pages 86-113, September.
    15. Symeonidis, George, 2007. "The Effect of Competition on Wages and Productivity: Evidence from the UK," Economics Discussion Papers 3687, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    16. Nicholas Crafts, 2013. "Returning to growth: lessons from the 1930s," Working Papers 13010, Economic History Society.
    17. Nicholas Crafts, 2021. "What can we learn from the United Kingdom’s post‐1945 economic reforms?," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 354-376, October.
    18. Crafts, Nicholas & O'Rourke, Kevin, 2013. "Twentieth Century Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 9633, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Obstfeld, Maurice, 2020. "Harry Johnson’s “Case for Flexible Exchange Rates†– 50 Years Later," CEPR Discussion Papers 14488, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Crafts, Nicholas, 2011. "The Marshall Plan: A Reality Check," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 49, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    21. Alan Booth, 2003. "The manufacturing failure hypothesis and the performance of British industry during the long boom," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-33, February.
    22. Richard K. Fleischman & Trevor Boyns & Thomas N. Tyson, 2008. "The Search for Standard Costing in the United States and Britain," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 44(4), pages 341-376, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    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:wpaper:20669. 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: LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chlseuk.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.