Private and Public Enterprise in Europe
Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, 1830–1990

A comparative history of the economic organisation of energy, telecommunications and transport in Europe, first published in 2005.

Robert Millward (Author)

9780521835244, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 June 2005

372 pages, 1 map 33 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.72 kg

Review of the hardback: ' This book is a welcome work of synthesis. A volume in the Cambridge Studies in Economic History, it seeks to chart the development of the major elements in Europe's utilities sector - energy, telecommunications and transport - over the period from the arrival of the railways in the 1830's to c. 1990. Of course, it is a daunting task to attempt this on the pan-European stage, and it is to Bob Millward's credit, therefore, that he has produced an authoritative and, in many ways, innovative effort. ... an important book which, drawing on a wide range of scholarship with a clarity of presentation, will be required reading for all interested in the development of Europe's utilities since the onset of industrialization.' Business History

This 2005 book is a comparative history of the economic organisation of energy, telecommunications and transport in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines the role that private and public enterprise have played in the construction and operation of the railways, electricity, gas and water supply, tramways, coal, oil and natural gas industries, telegraph, telephone, computer networks and other modern telecommunications. The book begins with the arrival of the railways in the 1830s, charts the development of arms' length regulation, municipalisation and nationalisation, and ends on the eve of privatisation in the 1980s. Robert Millward argues that the role of ideology, especially in the form of debates about socialism and capitalism, has been exaggerated. Instead the driving forces in changes in economic organisation were economic and technological factors and the book traces their influence in shaping the pattern of regulation and ownership of these key sectors of modern economies.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Ideology, technology and economic policy
Part II. The Construction of the New European Infrastructure c. 1830–1914: 2. Infrastructure development and rights of way in the early nineteenth century
3. Local supply networks, private concessions and municipalisation
4. Railways and telegraph: economic growth and national unification
5. Electricity supply, tramways and new regulatory regimes c. 1870–1914
Part III. Nations and Networks 1914–45: 6. Infrastructure development from the nineteenth to the twentieth century: an overall perspective
7. The development of telecommunications
8. Network integration in electricity supply: successes and failures
9. Railway finances and road-rail competition
Part IV. State Enterprise 1945–90: 10. The new state, economic organisation and planning
11. Coal, oil and security
12. Airline regulation and the transport revolution
13. Telecommunications: from calm to storm
14. Economic policy, financial accountability and productivity growth
Part V. Conclusions: 15. The road to privatisation and de-regulation?

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Economics [KC], Politics & government [JP], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]