IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2007cf486.html

Logistics, Market Size and Giant Plants in the Early 20th Century: A Global View

Author

Listed:
  • Leslie Hannah

    (Faculty of Economis, University of Tokyo and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)

Abstract

Around 1900, the businesses of developed Europe - transporting freight by a more advantageous mix of ships, trains and horses - encountered logistic barriers to trade lower than the tyranny of distance imposed on the sparsely populated United States. Highly urbanized, economically integrated and compact northwest Europe was a market space larger than, and - factoring in other determinants besides its (low) tariffs - not less open to inter-country trade than the contemporary American market was to interstate trade. By the early twentieth century, the First European Integration enabled mines and factories - in small, as well as large, countries - to match the size of United States plants, where factor endowments, consumer demand or scale economies required that.

Suggested Citation

  • Leslie Hannah, 2007. "Logistics, Market Size and Giant Plants in the Early 20th Century: A Global View," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-486, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2007cf486
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2007/2007cf486.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Wardley, 1999. "The Emergence of Big Business: The Largest Corporate Employers of Labour in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States c. 1907," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 88-116.
    2. Paul Krugman & Anthony J. Venables, 1995. "Globalization and the Inequality of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 857-880.
    3. Chapman,Stanley, 1992. "Merchant Enterprise in Britain," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521351782, January.
    4. Kinghorn, Janice Rye & Nye, John Vincent, 1996. "The Scale of Production in Western Economic Development: A Comparison of Official Industry Statistics in the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, 1905–1913," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 90-112, March.
    5. Edward Lorenz, 1991. "An Evolutionary Explanation for Competitive Decline: British Shipbuilding 1890-1970," Post-Print halshs-00483725, HAL.
    6. Field, Alexander James, 1983. "Land Abundance, Interest/Profit Rates, and Nineteenth-Century American and British Technology," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 405-431, June.
    7. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226301532 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jacks, David S. & Meissner, Christopher M. & Novy, Dennis, 2010. "Trade costs in the first wave of globalization," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 127-141, April.
    9. Landes,David S., 2003. "The Unbound Prometheus," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521826662, January.
    10. Harold Barger, 1951. "The Transportation Industries, 1889-1946: A Study of Output, Employment, and Productivity," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number barg51-1, December.
    11. Landes,David S., 2003. "The Unbound Prometheus," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521534024, January.
    12. Irwin, Douglas A., 1993. "Free Trade and Protection in Nineteenth-Century Britain and France Revisited: A Comment on Nye," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(01), pages 146-152, March.
    13. 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.
    14. James, John A., 1983. "Structural Change in American Manufacturing, 1850–1890," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 433-459, June.
    15. Lew, Byron & Cater, Bruce, 2006. "The telegraph, co-ordination of tramp shipping, and growth in world trade, 1870–1910," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 147-173, August.
    16. Broadberry, Stephen N., 1998. "How Did the United States and Germany Overtake Britian? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870–1990," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 375-407, June.
    17. Sukkoo Kim, 1995. "Expansion of Markets and the Geographic Distribution of Economic Activities: The Trends in U. S. Regional Manufacturing Structure, 1860–1987," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 881-908.
    18. Lorenz, Edward H., 1991. "An Evolutionary Explanation for Competitive Decline: The British Shipbuilding Industry, 1890–1970," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 911-935, December.
    19. Federico,Giovanni, 2009. "An Economic History of the Silk Industry, 1830–1930," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521105262, January.
    20. Vleck, Va Nee L. Van, 1997. "Delivering Coal by Road and Rail in Britain: The Efficiency of the “Silly Little Bobtailed” Coal Wagons," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 139-160, March.
    21. Broadberry,Steve N., 2005. "The Productivity Race," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521023580, January.
    22. Douglas A. Irwin, 2002. "Interpreting the Tariff–Growth Correlation of the Late 19th Century," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 165-169, 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. Teresa Silva Lopes & Paulo Guimaraes, 2014. "Trademarks and British dominance in consumer goods, 1876–1914," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 793-817, August.
    2. repec:dgr:rugggd:gd-108 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. 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.
    4. Rosés, Joan R. & Wolf, Nikolaus, 2008. "Prosperity and depression in the European economy and during interwar years (1913-1950) : an introduction," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp08-10, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    5. Kemeny, Tom & Petralia, Sergio & Storper, Michael, 2022. "Disruptive innovation and spatial inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115953, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2011. "Industrial Catching Up in the Poor Periphery 1870-1975," NBER Working Papers 16809, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Cagé, Julia & Gadenne, Lucie, 2018. "Tax revenues and the fiscal cost of trade liberalization, 1792–2006," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-24.
    8. Cirillo, Valeria & Rinaldini, Matteo & Staccioli, Jacopo & Virgillito, Maria Enrica, 2018. "Workers’ awareness context in Italian 4.0 factories," GLO Discussion Paper Series 240, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Bagoulla, Corinne & Péridy, Nicolas, 2011. "Market access and the other determinants of North–South manufacturing location choice: An application to the Euro-Mediterranean area," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 537-561.
    10. Crafts, Nicholas & Toniolo, Gianni, 2008. "European Economic Growth, 1950-2005: An Overview," CEPR Discussion Papers 6863, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Brülhart, Marius & Desmet, Klaus & Klinke, Gian-Paolo, 2020. "The shrinking advantage of market potential," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    12. Nicole Litzel & Joachim Möller, 2011. "Industrial Clusters and Economic Integration: Theoretic Concepts and an Application to the European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume II, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Valentina Lapo, 2010. "Spatial concentration of production and investor expectations: the analysis of branch attraction of investments into regions," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 18(2), pages 3-19.
    14. Nicholas Crafts & Alexander Klein, 2015. "Geography and intra-national home bias: U.S. domestic trade in 1949 and 2007," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 477-497.
    15. Levine, David K. & Modica, Salvatore, 2022. "Survival of the Weakest: Why the West Rules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 394-421.
    16. Paulo Bastos & Manuel Cabral, 2007. "The Dynamics of International Trade Patterns," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 143(3), pages 391-415, October.
    17. Giacomin Favre & Joël Floris & Ulrich Woitek, 2018. "Intergenerational mobility in the 19th century: micro-level evidence from the city of Zurich," ECON - Working Papers 274, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Astrid KRENZ & Gerhard RÜBEL, 2009. "Explaining Industrial Localization and Countries´ Specialization in the European Union: An Empirical Investigation," EcoMod2009 21500056, EcoMod.
    19. McLean, Tom & McGovern, Tom & Davie, Shanta, 2015. "Management accounting, engineering and the management of company growth: Clarke Chapman, 1864–1914," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 177-190.
    20. 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.
    21. Timothy J. Garrett, 2013. "Thermodynamics of long-run economic innovation and growth," Papers 1306.3554, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    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:tky:fseres:2007cf486. 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: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.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.