Path dependence, fragmented property rights and the slow diffusion of high throughput technologies in inter-war British coal mining

Scott, Peter

doi:10.1080/00076790500204693

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…More precise measures of productivity, such as output per shift, output per hour and total factor productivity, have been estimated for some countries, regions or firms before World War I (e.g. Mitchell 1984;Church 1986;Greasley 1990;Scott 2006;Clark and Jacks 2007;Burhop and Lübbers 2009;Jopp 2016Jopp , 2017Montant 2020). However, given the scarcity of data, these estimates usually refer to relatively short periods or specific dates.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

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Productivity, Mortality, and Technology in European and US Coal Mining, 1800–1913

Silvestre

2022

Standard of Living

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European coal production underwent a period of dramatic increase from the early nineteenth century to 1913. A consensus exists, however, for a depiction of the coal industry as, to a high degree, technologically stagnant throughout the long nineteenth century. Macro-inventions, or general purpose technologies, in fact, appeared at either end of the period. In the interregnum, therefore, the increase in European coal production would have mainly been the result of adding more labor rather than developing new technology. This paper aims to revise this interpretation. First, long-term series of labor productivity and fatality rates data are presented. Second, a link between improvements in Europe both in productivity and safety in conjunction with a series of "small-scale", for the most part complementary to labor and closely related to questions of safety, technological innovations is proposed. A comparison of productivity and safety for European countries is established with the US.

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lamb 1976, esp. p. 155;Greasley 1990;Burghardt 1995, p. 382;Scott 2006;Broadberry and Burhop 2007;Burhop 2008;Burhop and Lübbers 2009). Although Clark and Jacks' (2007) estimates focus attention on the early English Industrial Revolution, between 1700 and 1869, showing a very modest productivity growth.…”

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confidence: 99%

Productivity, Mortality, and Technology in European and US Coal Mining, 1800–1913

Silvestre

2022

Standard of Living

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“…In countries like France much of the coal mining workforce had been killed during the war (156). For the leading coal power, the UK, many considered the industry to be in decline in the years after the war (69,138,155,173) with leading experts accepting in the 1930s that the coal age had now given way to the "oil age" (174). Meanwhile in the USA the expansion of hydro-electric capacity was authorised in direct response to concerns around maintaining supply that had been revealed during wartime and hydro capacity doubling in four years in the USA (175).…”

Section: Imprints Of the First World Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of War in Deep Transitions: Exploring Mechanisms, Imprints and Rules in Sociotechnical Systems

Johnstone

McLeish

2020

SSRN Journal

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This paper explores in what ways the two world wars influenced the development of sociotechnical systems underpinning the culmination of the first deep transition. The role of war is an underexplored aspect in both the Techno-Economic Paradigms (TEP) approach and the Multi-level perspective (MLP) which form the two key conceptual building blocks of the Deep Transitions (DT) framework. Thus, we develop a conceptual approach tailored to this particular topic which integrates accounts of total war and mechanisms of war from historical studies and imprinting from organisational studies with the DT framework's attention towards rules and metarules. We explore in what ways the three sociotechnical systems of energy, food, and transport were affected by the emergence of new demand pressures and logistical challenges during conditions of total war; how war impacted the directionality of sociotechnical systems; the extent to which new national and international policy capacities emerged during wartime in the energy, food, and transport systems; and the extent to which these systems were influenced by cooperation and shared sacrifice under wartime conditions. We then explore what lasting changes were influenced by the two wars in the energy, food, and transport systems across the transatlantic zone. This paper seeks to open up a hitherto neglected area in analysis on sociotechnical transitions and we discuss the importance of further research that is attentive towards entanglements of warfare and the military particularly in the field of sustainability transitions.

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“…Broadberry and Fremdling, ‘Comparative productivity’, p. 405; Boyns, ‘Rationalisation’; Greasley, ‘Diffusion’; idem, ‘Fifty years’; Garside, ‘Adjusting to decline’; Scott, ‘Path dependence’, pp. 22–4; Supple, History .…”

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confidence: 99%

Did closures do any good? Labour productivity, mine dynamics, and rationalization in interwar Ruhr coal mining

Jopp

2016

The Economic History Review

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Throughout the late 1920s, German coal mining saw an exceptional surge in labour productivity, led by the performance of the Ruhr coal mines. It is commonly accepted in the relevant literature that the economy-wide 'rationalization boom' explains that pattern. This study tests the related hypothesis that 'negative rationalization', in the form of a massive wave of mine closures over the period 1924-9, played a significant role in stimulating aggregate labour productivity in the Ruhr coal district. Using an original dataset for the totality of Ruhr coal mines, the causes of productivity change over the broader period 1913-38 are identified, using the decomposition method of Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan. Results suggest that labour productivity was driven largely by improvements at individual mines, attributable to the intensified mechanization of underground operations. In sharp contrast, turnover effects were marginal, overall, compared to the effects stemming from the producer dynamics among surviving mines. Thus, the practical productivity implications of mine closures during the rationalization boom are negligible and overrated in the literature. These findings indicate the necessity of testing the relative importance of 'negative rationalization' in the form of plant closures in other branches of the Weimar economy. * Author's Affiliation: University of Regensburg. † I would like to thank Mark Spoerer, two anonymous referees, and the editor for invaluable suggestions for improvement of the original manuscript. 1

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Path dependence, fragmented property rights and the slow diffusion of high throughput technologies in inter-war British coal mining

Cited by 15 publications

References 20 publications

Productivity, Mortality, and Technology in European and US Coal Mining, 1800–1913

Productivity, Mortality, and Technology in European and US Coal Mining, 1800–1913

The Role of War in Deep Transitions: Exploring Mechanisms, Imprints and Rules in Sociotechnical Systems

Did closures do any good? Labour productivity, mine dynamics, and rationalization in interwar Ruhr coal mining

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