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From the Counting House to the Modern Office: Explaining Anglo-American Productivity Differences in Services, 1870–1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2003

Stephen Broadberry  and
Sayantan Ghosal
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
Sayantan Ghosal
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

The United States overtook Britain in comparative aggregate productivity levels primarily as a result of trends in services rather than trends in industry. This occurred during the transition from customized, low-volume, high-margin business organized on the basis of networks to standardized, high-volume, low-margin business with hierarchical management from the 1870s. This transformation from the counting house to the modern office was dependent on technologies that improved communications and information processing. The technologies were slower to diffuse in Britain as a result of lower levels of education and stronger labor-force resistance to intensification.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 967 - 998
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2002

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