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- Title
Defending productivity growth in the English coal trade during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Authors
Ville, Simon
- Abstract
The article discusses productivity growth in the English coal trade during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There are three methodological steps to related to productivity change in the coal trade: Identifying sources of productivity change; Measuring their effect on the productivity of the trade; Assessing the wider consequences for economic development. The bulk of the author's original article was concerned with identifying very clear sources of productivity change. Economist W. Hausman accepts the author's remarks concerning sources of productivity change and adds no further comment about them. His concentration is upon measuring productivity growth where he comes to different and more specific conclusions. On the third methodological step, the impact of productivity growth, he appears equivocal. On the one hand he suggests the impact was minimal and on the other that great benefits were brought to the economies of London and the north-east. Even if one were to accept Hausman's conclusion of minimal falls in shipping costs or freight rates, this does not rule out a growth of total factor productivity of the magnitude outlined in the author's paper.
- Subjects
ENGLAND; COAL industry; INDUSTRIAL productivity; ECONOMIC development; ECONOMIC policy; FREIGHT &; freightage rates
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1987, Vol 40, Issue 4, p597
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2596396