Market Services and the Productivity Race, 1850–2000
British Performance in International Perspective

A major reassessment of Britain's comparative productivity performance over the last 150 years.

Stephen Broadberry (Author)

9780521123143, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 November 2009

432 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.63 kg

'The book's great achievement is to force us to refocus our thinking.' Contemporary European History

Now that services account for such a dominant part of economic activity, it has become apparent that achieving high levels of productivity in the economy requires high levels of productivity in services. This book offers a major reassessment of Britain's comparative productivity performance over the last 150 years. Whereas in the mid-nineteenth century Britain had higher productivity than the United States and Germany, by 1990 both countries had overtaken Britain. The key to achieving high productivity was the 'industrialisation' of market services, which involved both the serving of business and the provision of mass-market consumer services in a more business like fashion. Comparative productivity varied with the uneven spread of industrialised service sector provision across sectors. Stephen Broadberry provides a quantitative overview of these trends, together with a qualitative account of developments within individual sectors, including shipping, railways, road and air transport, telecommunications, wholesale and retail distribution, banking, and finance.

Preface and acknowledgements
1. Introduction and overview
Part I. Measuring Comparative Productivity Performance: 2. The contribution of services to the productivity performance of the whole economy
3. Comparative productivity performance in market services
4. A sectoral data base: Britain, the United States and Germany, 1870–1990
Part II. Explaining Comparative Productivity Performance: 5. Technology, organisational change and the industrialisation of services
6. Investment in physical and human capital
7. Competition and the institutional framework
Part III. Reassessing the Performance of British Market Services: 8. The 'golden age' of British commerce, 1850–1914
9. The collapse of the liberal world economic order, 1914–50
10. Completing the industrialisation of services, 1950–90
11. British services in the 1990s: a preliminary assessment
12. Summary and conclusions
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Business & management [KJ], Economic history [KCZ], Economics [KC], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]