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An Evolutionary Explanation for Competitive Decline: The British Shipbuilding Industry, 1890–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Edward H. Lorenz
Edward H. Lorenz
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.
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Extract

British shipbuilding enjoyed undisputed international supremacy between 1890 and 1914. Following a gradual loss of world market share during the interwar years, Britain sustained an absolute decline in output between 1948 and 1970. European shipbuilding expanded at an unprecedented rate after World War II. This article attributes Britain's dramatic competitive decline in part to management's uncertaintly about the need to reform work administration methods during the decade or so following world War II, and in part to lack of trust between labor and management, which resulted in a failure of cooperation over proposed institutional reform between 1958 and 1965.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 911 - 935
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1991

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