Did the 48-hour week damage Britain's industrial competitiveness?1

Scott, Peter; Spadavecchia, Anna

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00590.x

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…On 49 hours as the knot, ‘some form of eight‐hour [per day] legislation had been adopted by most western European countries by autumn 1919, and by most other industrial nations over the next two years. Meanwhile Britain, Italy and the US had moved to a 48‐hour standard by collective agreements rather than legislation’ (Scott and Spadavecchia, , p. 1271).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Productivity of Working Hours

Pencavel

2014

Econ J

150

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 8129 April 2014 ABSTRACT The Productivity of Working HoursObservations on munition workers, most of them women, are organized to examine the relationship between their output and their working hours. The relationship is nonlinear: below an hours threshold, output is proportional to hours; above a threshold, output rises at a decreasing rate as hours increase. Implications of these results for the estimation of labor supply functions are taken up. The findings also link up with current research on the effects of long working hours on accidents and injuries.JEL Classification: J24, J22, N34

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confidence: 99%

The Productivity of Working Hours

Pencavel

2014

Econ J

150

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“…But perhaps one explanation is that trade partners experienced similar movements in wage shares. As Scott and Spadavecchia (2011) point out, the eight-hour work day reform enacted in Britain in 1919 increased hourly wages significantly and so had a negative effect on export competitiveness; however, since most of Britain's trade partners enacted similar reforms at the same time, the net effect on British competitiveness was zero or close to zero. This point might be generalizable to other time periods as well, not least the postwar period when wage shares grew in all OECD countries (Bengtsson and Waldenström 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wages, Income Distribution and Economic Growth: Long-Run Perspectives in Scandinavia, 1900–2010

Bengtsson

Stockhammer

2021

Review of Political Economy

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This article views analysis of the influence of capital-labour income distribution on economic growth from a historical perspective, using data from 1900 onwards. We study the three Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where conventional accounts of the postwar growth miracles in these small, open economies have emphasized the role of wage restraint, favouring profits and investment over consumption. Instead, we show that the 1950s and 1960s saw growing wage shares, and use the Bhaduri-Marglin model to econometrically analyse the effects on consumption, investment, exports and imports and the total effects on GDP. Furthermore, we estimate the effects of wage pressure on labour productivity. Growing wage shares have had a small positive effect on GDP growth in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and the positive effect was larger in the postwar period than in other times. However, the positive growth effects of wage pressure were modest as the demand was only weakly wage-led. In contrast, supply side effects were large. Labour productivity was stimulated by vigorous wage increases, as argued by the Swedish Rehn-Meidner model as well as by post-Keynesian economists. The present investigation opens several further avenues for research on the distribution-growth nexus.

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“…Hart (1987) theoretically and empirically analysed the relationship between the reduction in working hours and the degree of employment, pointing out that the employment effects depended on the type of unemployment and the production function and that many other factors and a policy that focused on reducing working time did not lead to a significant reduction in unemployment. Scott and Spadavecchia (2011) argued the drawbacks of a 48-hour week for British industrial workers, indicating that prolonged working time is a critical factor in depressing workers' productivity.…”

Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%