Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T15:21:12.515Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - The economics of World War I: an overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2009

Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
Professor, University of Warwick
Mark Harrison
Affiliation:
Professor, University of Warwick
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Mark Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Globalisation has been under way for centuries. The modern wave of globalisation that dates from the early nineteenth century gave a significant boost to world trade, world capital flows, and worldwide migration, with great powers competing for colonial empires on a global scale. The Great War of 1914 to 1918 then interrupted and, for a time, set into reverse the process of globalisation.

How did globalisation lead to war? At first sight it was the competition for colonies that ran out of control. Britain and France, the established powers of ‘old’ Europe, had established a condominium over most of Africa and much of Asia; Germany, the rising power of ‘new’ Europe, had no colonies to speak of, wanted some, and expected to get them at the expense of the French and the British. Behind this lay a perception that world power was a zero-sum game. Since Adam Smith, the Anglo-Saxon liberals had argued that trade was a game from which all could benefit at once. But in the late nineteenth century liberalism was being challenged by a new nationalism that gave more weight to the control of territory and settlement than to trade and competition. When it came to territory, the supply was fixed and there was only so much to go round. Therefore, the new nationalists reasoned, it was worth Germany's while to break up world trade for a while in order to grab territory from the older powers.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramovitz, M. (1986), ‘Catching Up, Forging Ahead and Falling Behind’, Journal of Economic History 46: 385–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adelman, J. R. (1988), Prelude to the Cold War: The Tsarist, Soviet, and U.S. Armies in Two World Wars, Boulder, CO, and London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Ahmed, S. (1986), ‘Temporary and Permanent Government Spending in an Open Economy: Some Evidence for the United Kingdom’, Journal of Monetary Economics 17: 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrzejewski, S. (1954), Military Organisation and Society, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Barro, R. J. (1974), ‘Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?’, Journal of Political Economy 82: 1095–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barro, R. J.(1981), ‘Output Effects of Government Purchases’, Journal of Political Economy 89: 1086–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogart, E. L. (1920), Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War (2nd edition), New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bowley, A. L. (1930), Some Economic Consequences of the Great War, London: Thornton Butterworth.Google Scholar
Brennan, G. and Tullock, G. (1982), ‘An Economic Theory of Military Tactics: Methodological Individualism at War’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 3(2–3): 225–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. (1998), ‘How did the United States and Germany Overtake Britain? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870–1990’, Journal of Economic History 58: 375–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. and Howlett, P. (1998), ‘The United Kingdom: “Victory at All Costs”’, in Harrison, M. (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chickering, R. and Förster, S. (2000) (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J. M. (1931), The Cost of the World War to the American People, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Edelstein, M. (2000), ‘War and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century’, in Engerman, S. L. and Gallman, R. E. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, volume III: The Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 329–406.Google Scholar
Eichengreen, B. (1992), Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eloranta, J. (2003), ‘Responding to Threats and Opportunities: Military Spending Behavior of the Great Powers, 1870–1913’, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
Ercolani, P. (1969), ‘Documenti statistica di base’, in Fuà, G. (ed.), Lo sviluppo economico in Italia, vol. III, Milan: Franco Angeli, pp. 380–460.Google Scholar
Evans, P. (1985), ‘Do Large Deficits Produce High Interest Rates?’, American Economic Review 75: 68–87.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H. (1972), National Income, Expenditure, and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H., Temin, P., and Toniolo, G. (1997), The European Economy Between the Wars, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fellner, F. (1915), ‘Das Volksvermögern Österreichs und Ungarns’, Bulletin de L'Institut International de Statistique 20, 2e livraisons.
Gatrell, P. and Harrison, M. (1993), ‘The Russian and Soviet Economy in Two World Wars’, Economic History Review 46(3): 425–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerschenkron, A. (1962), Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, R. W., Lipsey, R. E., and Mendelson, M. (1963), Studies in the National Balance Sheet of the United States (2 vols.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannah, L. (1983), The Rise of the Corporate Economy (2nd edition), London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hardach, G. (1977), The First World War, 1914–1918, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, M. (1998) (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herwig, H. H. (1988), ‘The Dynamics of Necessity: German Military Policy During the First World War’, in Millett, A. R. and Murray, W. (eds.), Military Effectiveness, vol. I: The First World War, Boston: Allen and Unwin, pp. 80–115.Google Scholar
Herwig, H. H.(1997), The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918, London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, W. G. (1965), Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendrick, J. W. (1976), The Formation and Stocks of Total Capital, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, P. (1988), ‘Military Effectiveness in the First World War’, in Millett, A. R. and Murray, W. (eds.), Military Effectiveness, vol. I: The First World War, Boston: Allen and Unwin, pp. 329–50.Google Scholar
Lamoreaux, N. R. (1985), The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
League of Nations (1927), International Statistical Yearbook, 1926, Geneva: League of Nations, Economic and Financial Section.
Lee, J. (1975), ‘Administrators and Agriculture: Aspects of German Agricultural Policy in the First World War’, in Winter, J. M. (ed.), War and Economic Development: Essays in Memory of David Joslin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 229–38.Google Scholar
Lindert, P. (1994), ‘The Rise of Social Spending, 1880–1930’, Explorations in Economic History 31: 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddison, A. (1995), Monitoring the World Economy, 1820–1992, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Maddison, A.(2001), The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, Paris: OECD.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milward, A. S. (1984), The Economic Effects of the Two World Wars on Britain (2nd edition), London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, B. (2003a), International Historical Statistics: Europe, 1750–2000 (5th edition), Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B.(2003b), International Historical Statistics: The Americas, 1750–2000 (5th edition), Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Nesterov, L. (1990), ‘Tsena voiny’, Vestnik statistiki, no. 5: 3–7.Google Scholar
Obstfeld, M. and Taylor, A. M. (2003), ‘Sovereign Risk, Credibility, and the Gold Standard: 1870–1913 versus 1925–31’, Economic Journal 113(487): 241–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, M. (1963), The Economics of the Wartime Shortage: A History of British Food Supplies in the Napoleonic War and in World Wars I and II, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Offer, A. (1989), The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Overy, R. J. (1998), ‘Who Really Won the Arms Race?’, The Times Literary Supplement, 13 November, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
Peacock, A. T. and Wiseman, J. (1967), The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom (2nd edition), London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Revell, J. (1967), The Wealth of the Nation: The National Balance Sheet of the United Kingdom, 1957–1961, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ritschl, A. (2003), ‘Dancing on a Volcano: The Economic Recovery and Collapse of Weimar Germany, 1924–33’, in Balderston, T. (ed.), The World Economy and National Economies in the Interwar Slump, Basingstoke: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. K. (1983), Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommariva, A. and Tullio, G. (1987), German Macroeconomic History, 1880–1979: A Study of the Effects of Economic Policy on Inflation, Currency Depreciation, and Growth, Basingstoke, Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strachan, H. (2003), The First World War, vol. I: A Call to Arms, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1950), Problems of Social Policy, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Urlanis, B. (1971), Wars and Population, Moscow: Progress.Google Scholar
Wagner, A. (1890), Finanzwissenschaft, Leipzig: Winter.Google Scholar
Wolf, N. (2003), ‘Economic Integration in Historical Perspective: The Case of Interwar Poland, 1918–39’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×