Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-l82ql Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T00:36:52.774Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Scale of Production in Western Economic Development: A Comparison of Official Industry Statistics in the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, 1905–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Janice Rye Kinghorn  and
John Vincent Nye
Janice Rye Kinghorn
Affiliation:
doctoral candidate
John Vincent Nye
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics and History at Washington University, Department of Economics, Campus Box 1208, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We use census data and information on large firms to generate descriptions of structural features of Western industry around 1906. We find that although the United States conforms to existing stereotypes, most other nations do not. German industry stands out as having the smallest plants and firms and the lowest concentration levels both in the aggregate and when grouped by industrial classifications. Equally startling, French levels of plant size and concentration are comparable to those of the United States. We speculate on the importance of these results for rethinking the traditional analysis of industrial development in the early twentieth century.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 90 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

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

REFERENCES

Bittlingmayer, George. “Did Antitrust Policy Cause the Great Merger Wave?” Journal of Law and Economics 28, no. 1 (1985): 77–118.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen N. “Manufacturing and the Convergence Hypothesis: What the Long Run Data Show.” this JOURNAL 53, no 4 (1993): 772–95.Google Scholar
Bunting, David. Statistical View of the Trusts. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Caron, François. An Economic History of Modern France. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D.Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D., and Daems, Herman, eds. Managerial Hierarchies: Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Clapham, J. H.The Economic Development of France and Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald. “The Nature of the Firm.” Econometrica 4 (11 1937): 386–405.Google Scholar
Daviet, Jean-Pierre. “Some Features of Concentration in France.” In The Concentration Process in the Entrepreneurial Economy since the Late 19th Century, edited by Hans, Pohl, 67–89. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1988.Google Scholar
Elbaum, Bernard, and Lazonick, William. “An Institutional Perspective on the British Decline.” In The Decline of the British Economy, edited by Elbaum, Bernard and Lazonick, William, 1–17. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986.Google Scholar
Fremdling, Rainer, and Tilly, Richard. “German Banks, German Growth, and Economic History.” this JOURNAL 36, no. 2 (1976): 416–24.Google Scholar
Grossman, Peter. “Contract and Conflict: A Study of the Express Cartel.” Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1992.Google Scholar
Hannah, Leslie. “Mergers in British Manufacturing Industry, 1880–1918.” Oxford Economic Papers 26, no. 1 (1974): 1–20.Google Scholar
Hannah, Leslie. The Rise of the Corporate Economy. London: Methuen, 1976.Google Scholar
Houssiaux, Jacques. Le pouvoir de monopole: essai sur les structures industrielles du capitalisme contemporain. Paris: Sirey, 1958.Google Scholar
Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. Résultats statistiques du recensement général de la population. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1907.Google Scholar
Kaiserlichen Statistischen Amt. Statistisches Jahrbuch fur das Deutsche Reiche. Berlin: Puttkammer und Muhlbrecht, 1907.Google Scholar
Kaplan, A. D. H.Big Enterprise in a Competitive System. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1964.Google Scholar
Kemp, Tom. “Structural Factors in the Retardation of French Economic Growth.” Kyklos 15, no. 2 (1962): 352–50.Google Scholar
Kindleberger, Charles P.Economic Growth in France and Britain 1851–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Kinghorn, Janice Rye. “Kartell or Cartel? Evidence from Nineteenth Century German Coal, Iron, and Steel Industries.” Essays in Economic and Business History. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Kocka, Jurgen, and Siegrist, Hannes. “Die 100 grossten deutschen Industrieunternehmen im spaten 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhundert.” In Recht und Entwicklung der Grossunterhenment, edited by Horn, Norbert and Jurgen, Kocka. 55–122, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1979.Google Scholar
Landes, David. “French Entrepreneurship and Industrial Growth in the Nineteenth Century.” this JOURNAL 9, no. 1 (1949): 45–61.Google Scholar
Landes, David. “French Business and the Businessman: A Social and Cultural Analysis.” In Modern France, edited by Earle, Edward Mead, 334–53. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951.Google Scholar
Landes, David, “Social Attitudes, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development: A Comment.” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History. 7 (12 1954): 245–72.Google Scholar
Landes, David, The Unbound Prometheus. London: Cambridge University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Liefman, Robert. Cartels, Concerns and Trusts. London: Cambridge University Press, 1932.Google Scholar
Moody’s Manual of Railroads and Corporation Securities. New York: Moody Publishing Co., 1905.Google Scholar
Neuburger, Hugh, and Stokes, Houston. “German Banks and German Growth, 1883–1913.” this JOURNAL 34, no. 3 (1974): 710–31.Google Scholar
Nye, John Vincent. “Firm Size and Economic Backwardness: A New Look at the French Industrialization Debate.” this JOURNAL 47, no. 3 (1987): 649–69.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Patrick, and Keyder, Caglar. Economic Growth in Britain and France 1780–1914. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978.Google Scholar
Payne, P. L. “The Emergence of the Large-Scale Company in Great Britain, 1870–1914.” Economic History Review 2nd ser., 20 (12 1967): 539–42.Google Scholar
Pollard, Sidney. Britain’s Prime and Britain’s Decline: The British Economy, 1870–1914. New York: E. Arnold, 1989.Google Scholar
Price, Roger. The Economic Modernization of France 1730–1880. London: Croom Helm, 1975.Google Scholar
Pryor, Frederic. “An International Comparison of Concentration Ratios.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 82, no. 2 (1972): 547–90.Google Scholar
Sawyer, John. “Attitudes Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 6 (1954): 273–86.Google Scholar
Schmitz, Christopher J.The Growth of Big Business in the United States and Western Europe 1850–1939. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1993.Google Scholar
Shaw, Christine. “The Large Manufacturing Employers of 1907.” Business History 25 (03 1983): 42–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sicsic, Pierre. “Labor Markets and Establishment Size in Nineteenth Century France.” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1991.Google Scholar
Troesken, Werner. “A Note on the Efficacy of the German Steel and Coal Syndicates.” European Economic History 18 no. 3 (1989): 595–600.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. Factory Department. Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshopss for the Year 1901. London: HMSO, 1901.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Special Reports of the Census Office: Manufactures, 1905. Washington, DC: GPO, 1908.Google Scholar
Utton, M. A. “Some Features of the Early Merger Movement in British Manufacturing Industry.” Business History 14, no. 1 (1972): 51–60.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E.The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: Free Press, 1985.Google Scholar