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...

This paper revisits the issue of the productivity performance of pre-World War I Britain’s railway system with an improved dataset and with modern time-series econometrics. We find a slowdown in TFP growth between 1850 and 1870, after which it stabilized at about 1.1%. An analysis of...

The paper builds on a method proposed by Geary and Stark (2002) for estimating regional incomes in Victorian Britain. This is modified by using tax data to allocate non-wage income across regions. The results suggest that the coefficient of variation of regional GDP per head was rising rapidly...

This paper explores the location of industry in pre-World-War-I Britain using a model that takes account both of factor endowment and also of new economic geography influences. Broadly speaking, the pattern of industrial location in this period was quite persistent and regional specialization...

After the Golden Age, Italy experienced increasing difficulties in adjusting its economy to the changing external context and to the requirements for sustaining catch-up growth at a higher level of economic development. The adjustment issue is common to advanced countries but the difficulties...

After the Golden Age, Italy experienced increasing difficulties in adjusting its economy to the changing external context and to the requirements for sustaining catch-up growth at a higher level of economic development. The adjustment issue is common to advanced countries but the difficulties...

The paper reviews recent UK productivity performance using insights from new growth economics and its embodiment in growth accounting techniques. The sources of the UK labour productivity gap are found to differ across countries; broad capital per worker plays a larger part with regard to France...

This paper surveys the extensive literature on European economic growth since 1950. It presents an overview of comparative growth performance together with benchmarked growth accounting estimates. The growth experience is considered in terms of three periods, the Golden Age of 1950-73, the...