We find little support for the Schumpeterian hypothesis of a positive relationship between market power and innovation in 1950’s Britain even though many economists and policymakers accepted it at the time. Pricefixing agreements were very widespread prior to the 1956 Restrictive Practices Act...

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...

This paper examines major privately-owned British railway companies before World War I. Quantitative evidence is presented on return on capital employed, total factor productivity growth, cost inefficiency, and speed of passenger services. There were discrepancies in performance across companies...

New research on historical national accounting has provided a more comprehensive picture of European economic performance from the medieval period through industrialization and the transition to modern economic growth. These data confirm anecdotal arguments that pre-industrial economies were not...

As a result of recent work on historical national accounting, it is now possible to establish firmly the timing of the Great Divergence of living standards between Europe and Asia. There was a European Little Divergence as Britain and Holland overtook Italy and Spain, and an Asian Little...

This paper uses a stochastic cost frontier model to investigate the efficiency of Britain’s private railways during the period 1893-1912. We find that there was substantial inefficiency in the industry with no sign of reduction over time. Our main conclusion is that principal agent problems...

This paper constructs measures of market potential for British regions based on the spatial distribution of GDP and its accessibility. The results show that the North, Scotland and Wales were much less 'peripheral' before World War I than in 1985. The main reason for the deterioration in their...