'An old story, freshly told'? A comment on Broadberry and Crafts' approach to Britain's early post-war economic performance

Business History

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 62-72

  Tomlinson, Jim ^a   Tiratsoo, Nick ^a  

^a BRUNEL UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0001943179     PISSN: 00076791     EISSN: 17437938     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00076799800000169     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. S.N. Broadberry and N.F.R. Crafts, 'British Economic Policy and Industrial Performance in the Early Post-War Period', Business History,Vol.38 (1996), pp.65-91.
2. We do not address the human capital aspect of the argument, though we would note that, whilst the comparative deficiencies of some aspects of the qualification levels of the British seem well established, the link from these deficiencies to economic performance seems much harder to establish than is often assumed. See, for example, T. Cutler, 'Vocational Training and British Economic Performance: A Further Instalment of the "British Labour Problem"?', Work, Employment and Society ,Vol.6 (1992), pp.161-83.
3. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.86.
4. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy' Ibid.
5. B. Hindess, Choice, Rationality and Social Theory (London, 1987).
6. A classic article by an economist on this issue is A.K. Sen, 'Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioural Foundations of Economic Theory', in A.K. Sen, Choice .Welfare and Measurement (Oxford, 1982), especially pp.90-91.
7. H. Mercer, Constructing a Competitive Order. The Hidden History of British Antitrust Policies (Cambridge, 1995), ch.1.
8. For contemporary comment on this issue, see L. Rostas, 'British and American Industry Compared', Listener, 11 Nov.1948, pp.713, 727.
9. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.77.
10. J.D. Gribbin, 'The Post-War Revival of Competition as Industrial Policy', Government Economic Service Working Paper, No.19 (London, 1978), p.24. It is interesting to note, in the light of points made later in his comment, that Broadberry and Crafts' version of Gribbin's words runs as follows: 'The UK emerged from the 1930s and the war with a proliferation of collusive agreements covering perhaps 60 per cent of manufacturing output and frequently sustaining inefficient producers'
11. (Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.77).
12. A further complication in Broadberry and Crafts' use of Gribbin's work is that elsewhere he suggested that cartels were much less important immediately after the war than they became in the late 1950s, so that the precise dating of early post-war' becomes rather important. D.C. Elliott and J.D.Gribbin, 'The Abolition of Cartels and Structural Change in the United Kingdom', in A.P. Jacquemin and H.W. de Jong (eds.), Welfare Aspects of Industrial Markets (Leiden, 1977), pp.345-65.
13. J. Tomlinson, 'The Role of Government in the Decline of the Post-War British Car Industry', Journal of Transport History, forthcoming.
14. D. Swann, P. O'Brien, W.P.J. Maunder and W.S. Howe, Competition in British Industry: Restrictive Practices Legislation in Theory and Practice (London, 1974), especially pp.146-9.
15. F. Bostock and G. Jones, 'US Multinationals in British Manufacturing before 1962', Business History Review, Vol.70 (1996), p.252.
16. 'Trends in Exports of United Kingdom compared with other Countries', Board of Trade Journal, Vol.172 (1957), pp.665-73.
17. 'Income and Finance of Quoted Companies', Economic Trends, Vol.162 (1962), pp.ii-xvii;
18. M. King, 'The Profits Crisis - Myth or Reality?', Economic Journal ,Vol.85 (1975), pp.33-54.
19. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.78.
20. W.E.J. McCarthy and S.R. Parker, 'Shop Stewards and Workshop Relations', Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers Associations, Research Papers No. 10 (London, 1968), pp.39-11.
21. Report of Royal Commission on Trade Unions (1968), Ch.3;
22. H. Clegg, The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain (Oxford, 1970), pp.247-8.
23. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.79.
24. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy' Ibid., p.80.
25. W. Campbell Balfour, 'Productivity and the Worker', British Journal of Sociology Vol.4 (1953), pp.257-65;
26. B.M. and S.K. Selekman, 'Productivity and Labour Relations', Harvard Business Review, Vol.27 (1949), pp.373-92;
27. D. Roy, 'Quota Restrictions and Goldbricking in a Machine Shop', American Journal of Sociology .Vol.LVII (1952), pp.427-42.
28. D. Paige and G. Bombach, A Comparison of National Output and Productivity of the United Kingdom and United States, (Paris, 1959);
29. G.S. Bain and R. Price, Profiles of Union Growth: A Comparative Statistical Portrait of Eight Countries (Oxford, 1980), pp.47-62.
30. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.83.
31. N.F.R. Crafts, 'The Attlee Government and the Post-War British Economy', Economic and Social Review; Vol.19 (1995), pp.231-52.
32. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.86.
33. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy' Ibid., p.83. Fairly typically, Broadberry and Crafts do not explain why these six reports have been chosen.
34. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy Ibid., p.84.
35. AACP, Iron and Steel (London, 1952), pp.75-7 and 19.
36. AACP, Internal Combustion Engines (1950), pp.5-6. The words omitted here relate to the US industry. Note that this report seems to be the only one of those cited by Broadberry and Crafts which links the structure of the product market to efficiency issues.
37. N. Tiratsoo and J. Tomlinson, 'Exporting the "Gospel of Productivity": United States Technical Assistance and British Industry, 1945-60' Business History Review, Vol.71 (1997).
38. Campbell Balfour, 'Productivity'.
39. N. Tiratsoo and J. Tomlinson, 'Restrictive Practices on the Shopfloor in Britain, 1945-60: Myth and Reality', Business History, Vol.36 (1994), pp.65-82;
40. Tiratsoo and Tomlinson, Industrial Efficiency and State Intervention: Labour, 1939-51 (1994), pp.160-63.
41. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.76.
42. The choice of the word 'revisionist' in this context is curious because there are several other studies which argue a case similar to our own. See inter alia the references in Tiratsoo and Tomlinson, 'Restrictive Practices', note 4.
43. F. Zweig, Productivity and Trade Unions (Oxford, 1949), p.21,
44. cited in Tiratsoo and Tomlinson, 'Restrictive Practices', p.70.
45. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.76.
46. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS200/B/3/2/C821 pt.2, N.C.10692 Memo. 'Restrictive Practices Which Are Impeding Production' (n.d. but 1950),
47. cited in Tiratsoo and Tomlinson, 'Restrictive Practices', p.74.
48. Zweig, Productivity, pp.22-3.
49. See the discussion in Tiratsoo and Tomlinson, 'Restrictive Practices', p.79.
50. Broadberry and Crafts, 'British Economic Policy', p.76.
51. H.C. Wallich, Mainsprings of German Revival (New Haven, CT, 1955), pp.1133-41;
52. W.A. Brusse and R.T. Griffiths, 'The Incidence of Postwar International Cartels in Europe: Some Preliminary Findings', paper to European Business History Association Conference, 1996.