Papers presented by Leslie Hannah since 2019

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

"Enhancing the 1907 UK Census of Production for International Plant Size and Labor Productivity Comparisons. "

Abstract:

I propose a rough-and-ready solution to the common lament that prior to 1930 UK censuses of production did not report the sizes of manufacturing plants nor their labor productivities by size classes. Using hitherto neglected Home Office reports on manufacturing plant numbers and employment and matching some with the industries described in the UK’s first (1907) census of production, produces plausible estimates of mean plant sizes for many UK industries, to complement those long available in foreign manufacturing censuses of the early 20th century. UK plants (challenging quantitatively unsupported Chandlerian stereotypes) were typically larger than those in the US or continental Europe, but UK industries with larger mean plant sizes were only mildly positively associated with high labor productivity (sterling net output per head), despite unsupported assertions to the contrary in the 1907 census final report. There were scale economies in municipal coal gasification (a doubling of inputs, over the input range of our sample, increased output by around 114-115%). But firm size and productivity were not obviously associated in private enterprise shipbuilding, an industry in which the UK continued to dominate global production and productivity (for modern propellor-driven iron/steel steamships, though possibly not sailing ships, rowing boats and paddle steamers): regional location near low-cost technically advanced input networks (especially on the Scottish Clyde and northeast England) and warship specialisation (mainly production for the Royal Navy) were more notable productivity drivers than input volumes there.

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2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"Reinventing UK and US Manufacturing for a Larger Scale and More High-Tech Future; What Do Their 1880/81 Censuses Show about Their Relative Progress Up to Then?"

Abstract:

It is commonly supposed that by the later 19h century successful businesses were becoming larger scale and more research-intensive and that some countries managed this process of reinvention more successfully than others. Hannah and Bennett (2022) identify 438 UK manufacturing firms employing 1,000 or more and /or with £1m (ca $5m) or more paid-up capital. The manuscript returns of the 1880 US census of manufactures enable us to compare US establishments, nominally by the same criteria. There were fewer large manufacturers in the US (even by the capital criterion and aggregating US establishments into firms). But were US firms more efficient, more capital-intensive, more vertically-integrated, and more professionally managed, as implied by Alfred Chandler in Scale and Scope (1990) and related articles. The statistical evidence on these further questions is less clear-cut, but British (like German and French) manufacturers were then less likely to be incorporated, but more likely to be listed on a major stock exchange, than American rivals. Some British manufacturers identified by Chandler as amateurish laggards relative to the “visible hands” of American professional businessmen in capital-intensive industries, in fact achieved higher levels of labour productivity in 1880/81. However, the US led in labour productivity in many industries (eg timber sawmills, grist mills, leather, sailing ships, paddle steamboats) still generally characterised by small producers. Hannah, L. and Bennett, R., ‘Large-scale Victorian manufacturers: Reconstructing the lost 1881 UK employer census’, Economic History Review, (November 2021), pp. 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13118. Chandler A D, Scale and Scope (MIT Press 1990) I m grateful to Jeremy Atack for generously sharing his database of manuscript returns to the 1880 US census of manufactures, but responsibility for any errors of interpretation is mine alone. The author acknowledges financial support from a Leverhulme Trust emeritus fellowship grant

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