Productivity in the economies of Europe

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Productivity in the economies of Europe
Fremdling, Rainer (Ed.); O'Brien, Patrick K. (Ed.)
Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version
Konferenzband / conference proceedings
Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with:
GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation:
Fremdling, Rainer (Ed.) ; O'Brien, Patrick K. (Ed.): Productivity in the economies of Europe. Stuttgart : Klett-
Cotta, 1983 (Historisch-Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen : quantitative sozialwissenschaftliche Analysen von
historischen und prozeß-produzierten Daten 15). - ISBN 3-608-91116-2. URN: 
http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-
ssoar-329272
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HSF

Historisch-Sozialwissenschaftliche
Forschungen
Quantitative
sozial
wissenschaftliche
Analysen
von
historischen
und
prozeß-produzierten
Daten
Herausgegeben
von
Heinrich
Best,
Wolfgang
Bick,
Paul J.
Müller,
Herbert
Reinke,
Wilhelm H.
Schröder
Zentrum für
historische
Sozialforschung
Band 15
Klett-Cotta

Rainer
Fremdling
and Patrick K.
O'Brien
(eds.)
Productivity
in the
Economies
of
Europe
Klett-Cotta

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
Productivity
in the economies of
Europe
/
Rainer
Fremdling
and Patrick K.
O'Brien
(eds.).
-
Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta,
1983.
(Historisch-sozialwissenschaftliche
Forschungen;
Bd.
15)
ISBN
3-608-91116-2
NE:
Fremdling,
Rainer
[Hrsg.];
GT
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
Fotomechanische
Wiedergabe
nur
mit
Genehmigung
des
Verlages
Verlagsgemeinschaft
Ernst Klett-J. G. Cotta'sche
Buchhandlung
Nachfolger
GmbH
©
Ernst
Klett,
Stuttgart
1983. Printed in
Germany
Gesamtherstellung:
Zechnersche
Buchdruckerei, Speyer
ISBN 3-608-91116-2
ISSN 0713-2153
(Historisch-Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen)

Preface
Contents
Jos
Delbeke,
Herman Van
der
Wee
Richard
Tilly
William
P.
Kennedy
Patrick
K.
O'Brien
Part 1:
Concepts
Quantitative
Research
in
Economic
History
in
Europe
after
1945.
11
Zusammenfassung:
Der
Stand der
europäischen
Wirtschaftshistoriographie
nach
1945.
29
Per
Capita
Income
and
Productivity
as
Indices of
Development
and
Welfare.
Some
Comments
on
Kuznetsian Economic
History.
30
Zusammenfassung: Pro-Kopf-Einkommen
und
Produktivität als Indikatoren für
Entwicklung
und
Wohlstand.
Bemerkungen
zur
Kuznetsianischen
Wirtschaftsgeschichte.
56
Problems of
Accountancy
and
Interpretation
in
Assessing
Long-Term
Economic Performance.
57
Zusammenfassung:
Probleme
der
volkswirtschaft¬
lichen
Gesamtrechnung
und ihrer
Interpretation
bei
der
Bewertung
langfristiger
wirtschaftlicher
Leistungen.
77
The
Analysis
and
Measurement of
the
Service
Econ¬
omy in
European
Economic
History.
79
Zusammenfassung: Messung
und
Analyse
des
Dienst¬
leistungssektors
in der
europäischen Wirtschaftsge¬
schichte.
88
Robert C. Allen
Recent
Developments
in
Production, Cost,
and
Index
Number
Theory,
with
an
Application
to
International
Differences
in
the Cost
and
Efficiency
of
Steelmaking
in 1907/09.
90
Zusammenfassung:
Neuere
Entwicklungen
in der
Produktions-
und Kostentheorie sowie in der Index¬
zifferntheorie und
ihre
Anwendung
auf
internationale
Kosten-
und
Leistungsunterschiede
bei
der Stahl¬
herstellung
in den Jahren
1907 und 1909.
99

Part 2:
Empirical
Studies
Angus
Maddison
Measuring Long
Term
Growth and
Productivity
Change
on a
Macro-economic Level.
101
Zusammenfassung:
Die
Messung
von
langfristigem
Wirtschaftswachstum und
Produktivitätsänderungen
auf makroökonomischer Ebene.
107
Carl-Ludwig
Holtfrerich
Gabriel Tortella
Jean
Gadisseur
Rainer
Fremdling
Rainer
Metz
The Growth
of
Net
Domestic Product
in
Germany,
1850-1913.
124
Zusammenfassung:
Das
Wachstum des
Nettoinlands-
produkts
in
Deutschland,
1850-1913.
131
National
Income
Estimation
by
Means
of
Monetary
Variables,
the Case of
Spain,
1772-1972.
Some
Preliminary
Results.
133
Zusammenfassung:
Die
Schätzung
des
Volksein¬
kommens
anhand monetärer
Variablen
am
Beispiel
Spaniens,
1772-1972.
139
Output
per
Worker and its Evolution
in
Belgian
Industry,
1846-1910.
141
Zusammenfassung: Entwicklung
der
Arbeitsproduk¬
tivität in der
belgischen
Industrie
von
1846
bis 1910.
151
Foreign
Trade
Patterns,
Technical
Change,
Cost and
Productivity
in the
West
European
Iron
Industries,
1820-1870.
152
Zusammenfassung: Außenhandelsstruktur,
technischer
Wandel,
Kosten
und Produktivität in der Eisenin¬
dustrie
Westeuropas,
1820-1870.
174
„Long
Waves"
in
English
and German Economic
Historical Series from the Middle of the Sixteenth
to
the Middle of the Twentieth
Century.
Zusammenfassung: "Lange
Wellen" in
wirtschafts¬
historischen Reihen
Englands
und Deutschlands
von
der Mitte des 16.
bis
zur
Mitte des
20.
Jahr¬
hunderts.
175
218
List of Contributors
and
Participants
Contributors' Affiliations and Addresses
220
221

Preface
Conference
papers
normally
emerge
as
the
product
of
an
idea and
are
usually
fo¬
cussed around
a
theme. The
papers
included
in
this
volume
were
submitted for
a
meeting
held
at
the
Zentrum
für
Interdisziplinäre Forschung
of Bielefeld
University.
That
meeting
was
designed
as a
preparatory Conference for
a
group
of
European
eco¬
nomic historians who have
informally
engaged
in
discussions
to
write
a
new
eco¬
nomic
history
of
Western
Europe.
Their
plans
have been stimulated
by
a
shared dissatisfaction with the
way
eco¬
nomic
history
of
Europe
is
now
taught
and
written
at
universities
throughout
the
continent and North America.
They
believe that the
subject
lacks
a
comparative
per¬
spective
and
a
common
method of
approach
which could
supply
coherence
to
the
continued accumulation of data
and historical
narratives
on
a
country
by
country ba¬
sis. In
brief
they
all
feel it is time
to
break
away
from
national
history
and
the
study
of
Europe's
past economic
development
in
terms
of
compartmentalized
country stud¬
ies and suggest
that
"European"
economic
history
needs
to
be
focussed
on
the
meas¬
urement
and
explanation
of differences
in
the levels of income and
productivity
at¬
tained
by
national economies for
bench mark
periods
between
the late
eighteenth
and the
mid
twentieth centuries.
Until such
a
Statistical framework is
established,
many
scholars who
now
research
and teach
in the
expanding
field of
European
economic
history
find it difficult
to
identify
a
central
set
of
problems
for their
articles,
books
and lectures.
Standard
texts
in the
subject
refer
to
"Europe",
but
they
assemble
together
country studies which
describe
and
analyse
the process
of economic
development
within
a
purely
national
context.
They
are
cases
which
summarize
and
synthesize ongoing
historical research
State
by
state.
Explicit comparisons
across
national frontiers constitute
a
rather
lim¬
ited part of the book and
are
often
relegated
to
conclusions.
For
method,
economic
histories of
Europe
tend
to
rely
upon
preliminary chapters
which
guide
students
to¬
wards
an
understanding
of the historical mechanisms
through
which such
major
in¬
puts
as
capital,
labour,
technology,
land,
the
widening
of
markets,
demand
and
entre¬
preneurs,
generated
the observed
growth
of output for
particular
countries.
And
they
depend
for coherence
upon
a
diffusion
model which for the
period
before
1914
pushes enquiry
towards
an
explanation
for
the
British lead
and Continental
lags
in
high
rates
of
capital
formation
and the
adoption
of
advanced
industrial
and
agrarian
technology.
Objections
to
and dissatisfaction with
recent
attempts
to
write
European
economic
history
as
technological
diffusion
or
in
terms
of
accelerated
rates
of invest¬
ment
are
already
well known.
Nevertheless,
typologies
of
development
propounded
by
Rostow,
Gerschenkron and Landes in the
1950s
continue
to
dominate
and
to
pro¬
vide heuristic devices for the
Organization
of
runs
of
data and the
plethora
of scho¬
larly
country studies
now
available.
Many
scholars in
this field
now
expect that the elements
of
a new
approach
could
emerge
simply by bringing together
the
considerable
but
separated
bodies of statis¬
tics
we now
possess
for individual
countries into
a
multinational frame of
reference.

Perhaps
the
most
obvious and urgent task of the
discipline
is
to restructure
and
to
re-
constitute the economic data available into
a
form that will
permit ready compari¬
sons across
the countries and
across
the
regions
of
Europe.
To
advance
further,
Eu¬
ropean
economic
history
should be
firmly
established
on
the basis of statistics which
will command the
respect
of scholars
throughout
the continent. Such statistics would
hopefully
inciude the conventional kind of numbers
readily
accessible
to
economists
and historians who
are
concemed with the
development
of
Europe
in the second half
ofthe 20th
Century;
for
example,
those familiär calculations of
per
capita
incomes
expressed
in
a common
currency
and
numerous
indicators of
partial productivity
for
agriculture
and
industry
which form the
indispensable
basis for
analysis
into
con¬
trasts
in
living
Standards and economic
efficiency
among
the economies of
Europe
at
the present time.
Certainly
the
amount
of information available for earlier
periods
will be
more
lim¬
ited. While the task of
collating
and
structuring
local and national statistics into
a
form which will allow historians
to
compare
levels of welfare and
productivity
across
national boundaries will
require
a
sustained effort of research and
co-operation
from
scholars in several
European
universities. There
are,
moreover,
problems
of method
and definition
to
be solved before the search for data
can
begin.
But
the concepts
connected
with international
comparisons
of income and
productivity
have been
ex¬
tensively
discussed
by
economists. And the voluminous research
over
the past three
decades
on
the
quantitative
economic
history
of
European
countries indicates that
a
considerable volume of statistics
are
available
to
be collated into
countrywide
or re¬
gional
averages
and
presented
in form which would facilitate international
compari¬
sons.
When
an
acceptable body
of data has been
gamered (largely
from
published
sources)
and
presented
as
sets
of
tables,
the
gaps
in
living
Standards
among Euro¬
pean
populations
can
be located and
quantified.
Historians will be able
to
distin¬
guish
the share of the
differential attributable
to
differences in the allocation of
la¬
bour between
industry
and
agriculture
from the share attributable
to
national differ¬
ences
in the
productivity
of labour
employed
in
industry
and
agriculture.
Differen¬
tials in labour
productivities
can
then be broken down between industries and
sectors
of
agriculture.
The
productivity
and role of the service
sector
can
be fitted into the
picture. Finally
scholars could then
proceed
to
analyse
such differences
in
terms
of
capital-labour
ratios,
natural
endowments,
the diffusion of
technology,
variations
in
pattems of
demand,
the size of the
market,
etc.
in different parts of
Europe.
At this
stage
(when
salient differences between nations
are
clear and
quantified) they
can
then
begin
to
utilize,
to
modify
and
to construct
modeis of economic
growth
to
ac¬
count
for differences in their patterns and
rates
of
growth
over
the
long
run.
All the scholars who
met
at
Bielefeld believe that the Statistical
building
blocks for
an
economic
history
of
Europe
must
take the form of
measures
of the
productivities
of labour
employed
in
producing
the manifold commodities
and
Services which make
up
the output of
a
given
country.
They recognized they
could
not
hope
to
make
pro¬
ductivity
estimates for
more
than
a
selection of the
principal
commodities
produced
in the 19th and 20th centuries. But if the
Utility
of the ideas is
appreciated
the
exam¬
ple
should stimulate further research
by
others
along
similar lines.
Meanwhile the
production
of estimates related
to
such obvious and
major
com¬
modities
as
grain,
meat,
wine, coal, textiles,
iron and
steel, bricks,
ships
and
railways
8

(just
to
take
some
obvious
examples)
should enable historians
to
begin
to
base
Eu-
rope's
economic
history
upon
a
valid
body
of statistics and focus it
firmly
upon
an
attempt
to account
for
measured differences in levels of
productivity
over
fairly long
periods
of time.
Statistics
are
only
a
preface
to
historical
enquiry.
But
once
they
are
collated into
the
required
form,
the
analysis
of
contrasts
and
changes
over
the
long
run
in labour
productivity
can
begin
and
at
that stage the relative
significance
of
agriculture,
food
supplies, capital,
the diffusion of advanced
technology
and
other
elements,
which
are
the
preoccupations
of economic
historians,
can
be
appreciated
and
a
European
per¬
spective brought
to
bear upon
the national
histories of its constituent
states.
At
that
point
not
only
should
a
"real"
economic
history
of
Europe
become
possible
but
the
finished
study
could exercise
a
real influence
upon
the
teaching
and
writing
of
na¬
tional
economic
history
because the
collection and
proper
arrangement of data
on
differences in
productivity
among
European
economies is
probably indispensable
for
a
deeper understanding
of the
long
term
economic evolution of individual
states.
For
its preparatory
meeting
at
Bielefeld
the group
concentrated
on
three
themes
re¬
lated
to
these broad ideas and
objectives:
first,
the
recent
development
and
present
state
of
European
economic
history (discussion
was
organized
around the
opening
paper
presented by
Herman Van
der
Wee and Jos
Delbeke and
an
address
by
Peter
Mathias); secondly,
a
lively
and
protracted
debate took
place
in
several sessions
con¬
cemed
with the
conceptual
problems
involved in the
measurement
and
comparisons
of income and
productivity
across
countries
(papers by
Richard
Tilly,
Patrick
O'Brien
and
Gianni
Toniolo
raised
most
ofthe theoretical issues
which could
arise);
thirdly,
our
deliberations became
more
concrete
when the