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Comparative Productivity in British and German Manufacturing Before World War II: Reconciling Direct Benchmark Estimates and Time Series Projections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2007

Stephen Broadberry  and
Carsten Burhop
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom Co-ordinator of the Economic History Initiative at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. E-mail: S.N.Broadberry@warwick.ac.uk.
Carsten Burhop
Affiliation:
Heisenberg-Fellow, Max-Planck-Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse 10, 53113 Bonn, Germany. E-mail: burhop@coll.mpg.de.
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Abstract

This article provides a new benchmark estimate of comparative Germany/U.K. labor productivity in manufacturing for circa 1907, and experiments with alternative German manufacturing production indices for time series projection from a circa 1935 benchmark. A consistent picture of broadly similar levels of manufacturing labor productivity in Britain and Germany throughout the period 1871–1938 is established. We also show that a substantial German productivity lead had already emerged in heavy industry by 1907, but was offset by a substantial British productivity lead in light industry. For the pre-1914 period, an additional check is provided using nominal income-based estimates.

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Type
ARTICLES
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 315 - 349
Copyright
© 2007 The Economic History Association

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