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...

When taking into account time, services can experience similar productivity gains as manufacturing. Motion pictures constituted the first technology that industrialized a labour-intensive service. Measuring output in time spent consuming them doubles output growth from 4.2 to as much as 9...

This paper estimates and compares the benefits cinema technology generated to society in Britain, France and the US between 1900 and 1938. It is shown how cinema industrialised live entertainment, by standardisation, automation and making it tradable. The economic impact is measured in three...

The economic, political and climatic conditions in which farmers around the world have tomake their production and investment decisions are changing dramatically. This studyanalyses the driving forces of changes in agricultural world markets and their implications forEuropean Union agriculture...

This paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on the long-term rate of productivity growth, but the eect depends critically on a country's level of financial development. For countries with relatively low levels of financial development,...

Many critics of free-market liberalism argue that higher product-market competition and the “Anglo-Saxon” management practices it stimulates increases productivity only at the expense of employees’ work-life balance (WLB). The empirical basis of these claims is unclear. To address this...

Schumpeterian development is characterised by the simultaneous interplay of growthand qualitative transformations of the economic system. At the sectoral level, suchqualitative transformations become manifest as variations in the sectoral composition ofproduction. Following the implementation of...

Immer wieder wird in der wirtschaftspolitischen Debatte behauptet, dass überhöhte Arbeitskosten die entscheidendeWurzel der hohen Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland seien. Eine neuere Untersuchung des Institutsder deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) scheint dessen frühere Ergebnisse zu bestätigen, wonach...

The main objective in encouraging a more dynamic start-up market is to boost productivity and economic growth by strengthening business support networks and creating an environment that encourages and supports entrepreneurial activity.The benefits of dynamic start-up market extend beyond the...

Flexible Arbeitszeiten sind derzeit vor allem im Zusammenhang mit der Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf und dem demographischenWandel ein viel diskutiertes Thema. Dank Flexibler Arbeitszeiten können beispielsweise Kosten durch Produktivitätssteigerungenreduziert, Fachkräfte mit der Aussicht...