‘Stop‐go’ policy and the restriction of postwar British house‐building

From the mid‐1950s to the early 1980s the Treasury and the Bank of England successfully advocated a policy of restricting both private and public sector house‐building, as a key but covert instrument of their wider ‘stop‐go’ macroeconomic policy framework. While the intensity of restrictions varied over the economic cycle, private house‐building was restricted (through limiting mortgage availability) for almost all this period. This was achieved by keeping building society interest rates low relative to other interest rates and thus starving the building society movement of mortgage funds. Mortgage restriction was never publicly discussed and sometimes operated alongside ambitious housing targets and well‐publicized policy initiatives to boost housing demand. This article outlines the evolution of house‐building restriction, together with its impacts on the housing sector and the wider economy. We review the evolution of the policy framework and its consequences, compare the level and stability of British house‐building during this period—historically and relative to other countries—and undertake time‐series econometric analysis of its impacts on both house‐building and house prices. Finally, implications for debates regarding stop‐go policy, Britain's housing problem, and the distributional consequences of government macroeconomic policy are discussed.     

‘Th'ancient Distaff’ and ‘Whirling Spindle’: measuring the contribution of spinning to household earnings and the national economy in England, 1550–17701

The purpose of this article is to estimate the workforce involved in spinning from the late sixteenth century until the eve of mechanization. In addition, the potential contribution to family earnings from spinning will be examined. Just about all of the millions of yards of woollen yarn that went into making English cloth had to be spun by women and children, but this activity has not been investigated to the extent that it deserves. Spinning was a skilled occupation where there was a great demand for the best quality product. Sources exist which make it possible to make general estimates of the amount of spinning needed in the economy, and its cost. This evidence shows that employment in spinning increased dramatically from the late seventeenth century, and continued to increase until there were probably over one million women and children employed in spinning by the mid‐eighteenth century. In addition earnings increased to the extent whereby earnings from spinning could contribute over 30 per cent of household income for poorer families. This has implications for looking at trends in real wages over time, as well as for the concept of the industrious revolution.     

The Marshall Plan and the Spanish postwar economy: a welfare loss analysis1

This article uses historical fact as a natural experiment to measure a country's welfare loss from shifting from an allowed to a restricted trade situation, based on international trade theory. A welfare loss of 8 per cent of GDP is found. The evolution of domestic import and export prices in Spain in 1940–58 fits international trade theory assumptions. The main years of autarky are not those commonly considered, but 1947–55, marked by the exclusion of Spain from the Marshall Plan and the Madrid Treaty between Franco's regime and the US. The upper‐bound welfare loss for 1947–55 is 26 per cent of GDP.     

‘Voice’ and ‘exit’ in Japanese firms during the Second World War: Sanpo revisited*

During the Second World War, the Japanese government and private sector searched for and implemented new mechanisms for coordination and motivation. One of these was sangyo hokokukai (sanpo). The Sanpo unit was basically an organization of the employer and employees of each firm, which held meetings to moderate labour relations. As a result of government policy to promote sanpo units, around 70 per cent of the total workers in Japan were organized into sanpo units in the early 1940s. As the members of trades unions and the workers of the companies that had factory committees were only 7 per cent and 5 per cent of the total workers in 1936 respectively, sanpo was the first large‐scale mechanism for Japanese employees to have a voice. This article examines the role of sanpo, using prefecture‐level and firm‐level data, based on a framework integrating the ‘voice view’ of unionism and transaction cost economics. It was found that sanpo reduced the participation rate in labour disputes, and enhanced labour productivity at least for some of the time.     

Comment on ‘Seat of Death and Terror’1

Oxley finds that smallpox consistently reduced heights, but that the fall was not statistically significant outside London or for juvenile Londoners. We demonstrate that inappropriate subdivision of the data into small samples explains the lack of significance she obtains. Further analysis of Oxley’s data shows that smallpox was a statistically significant cause of stunting, and that there were no differences in the effect by area. Juveniles exhibit greater stunting than adults, leading us to conclude that smallpox was not a proxy for overcrowding. That smallpox reduced height is important for anthropometric history: heights capture the effect of a truly awful disease.     

Explaining the ‘take‐off’ of the Catalan cotton industry1

Cotton was central to Catalan industrialization and, within cotton, progress in spinning and weaving, originating in the late eighteenth century, provided the cutting edge in the industry's modernization. This article tests the current orthodoxy concerning the timing and causes of this breakthrough. It does so by first evaluating what were external influences on the success‐government policy, the elasticity of supply of spun yarn (a potential disincentive) and of raw cotton‐and then providing an analytical narrative of the advance first in hand and then mechanical spinning. On this basis a conclusion is reached that government policy was more advantageous to the development than posited in the current orthodoxy, that elasticity in the supply of spun yarn slowed the transition and that, though growing availability of American cotton eased the transition, the key to the development is to be found within the Catalan economy, experiencing a 'Smithian'‐type growth process in the eighteenth century, within which industrialization of cotton was nearly the last achievement before Spain's severe 'old régime crisis' curtailed economic opportunity.     

Victorian’s economy in the long run

Annual estimates of the GDP of Victoria for the period 1861–1976/77 are here presented and used as a basis for an analysis of Victoria’s long–run economic growth. Victoria is represented as having fallen behind the per capita GDP of Australia as a whole in the 1870s but to have out–paced the national growth rate from the early twentieth century until the late 1950s. The changing importance of natural resources and of the scope for manufacturing development are seen as the basis for an explanation of the Victorian divergence. The article carries the implication of a need for regional disaggregation in the analysis of Australian economic growth.     

Demanding ‘credible commitment’: public reactions to the failures of the early financial revolution1

North and Weingast's notion of ‘credible commitment’ arguably offers a reasonable understanding of the factors that allowed the development of a trusting relationship between the state and its potential creditors over the long term. Yet, they failed to recognize the difficulties that were encountered along the way. This article highlights some of those difficulties and shows that at times when credible commitment was in doubt, supporters of the financial revolution held the government to account through the published media and by direct action. This is important for two reasons. First, the contemporary debate regarding the financial revolution, as it is presented by some historians, may lead us to presume that there would have been little public outcry had the government reneged on its debt. Indeed, we might argue that hostility towards financiers had always made default popular with many segments of the population. Yet, clearly opinion was not quite so one‐sided and the reaction against potential default was considerable. Second, the fact that the public creditors were willing to act to protect themselves shows that credible commitment was not just created from above by the Glorious Revolution and the subsequent development of the institutions of government; it was demanded from below by the people who invested in the financial revolution.     

Indigenous accumulation in the Kimberley during the early years of ‘self‐determination’, 1968–1975

This article — using empirical data gathered from, among other sources, the Western Australian State Records Office, National Archives, and Hansard — traces the trajectory of indigenous owned businesses in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. As part of the analysis, the article investigates the main reasons for a shift to the development policy of ‘self‐determination’ during the early 1970s. As well, there is recognition of the major contribution made by an emerging Aboriginal leadership to the evolving policy regime. In doing so, there is a critical re‐evaluation of the origins of, and support for, successful indigenous owned business enterprises.     

The “hidden hand” behind the resilience of the stateless economy of Somalia

This paper provides a framework of analysis of economic markets in stateless Somalia. It argues that the informal market that sustained private sector activities under the repressive policies of Siad Barré's government has provided a functioning system to the economy. In small communities that achieved internal law and order, their economy boomed in an unprecedented free-market environment, and the no-government situation has proven to be far better than the repressive government institutions and policies of Barré's era. However, the economic expansion is chaotic and there is a strong new demand for an accountable and effective government that could provide essential public goods for sustainable economic development.