Technology and productivity in historical perspective : introduction

This collection of articles is the result of a workshop organised to consider technology and productivity in historical perspective, drawing in particular on the evolutionary approach. The workshop was organised by the N.W. Posthumus Institute for Economic and Social History, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) and the Groningen Growth and Development Centre. Economic historians with backgrounds in both evolutionary and neoclassical traditions came together in the pleasant surroundings of the NIAS at Wassenaar in May 1999, to re-examine technology and productivity experience in Europe since the Industrial Revolution. An important focus was provided by recent theoretical developments, which have seen the incorporation of many evolutionary ideas into mainstream economics. Until quite recently, there seemed to be little common ground between approaches to technology and growth based on Solow's (1956) neoclassical growth model and Nelson and Winter's (1982) evolutionary, neo-Schumpeterian model. Now, however, the evolutionary approach has entered the mainstream through the work of writers such as Grossman and Helpman (1991) and Aghion and Howitt (1998) on endogenous innovation, and David (1985) and Arthur (1994) on path dependence. This is a particularly welcome development from the perspective of the European Historical Economics Society, the sponsors of the European Review of Economic History, holding out the promise of a genuinely ‘historical economics’

Comparative levels of labour productivity and labour costs in manufacturing in Belgium and the Netherlands, 1921-1990

Belgium and The Netherlands share a lot of common characteristics in historical development, geographical location, political and institutional structure and in the size and degree of the openness of their economies. However, detailed comparisons of economic development of Belgium and The Netherlands have been largely neglected until now. This paper presents a comparative description of the development of labour productivity in Belgian and Dutch manufacturing for the period 1921-1990. Three comparative benchmark estimates of output and productivity for the years 1937, 1960 and 1987 were calculated, mainly based on census information. Levels of manufacturing productivity are extended backward and forward by linking time series of productivity change from 1921 to 1990 to the benchmarks.

Accounting for economic growth in the Netherlands since 1913

This paper applies a growth accounting approach to monitor growth performance of the Netherlands since 1913, which looks at the contribution of, labour, human capital, physical and knowledge capital to real output growth. The paper also compares growth and level of per capita income and productivity in the Netherlands with that of other Northwest European countries. The paper includes an extensive appendix with annual figures from 1913 to 1994.

Three phases of Dutch economic growth and technological change, 1815-1997

In this paper we analyze the dynamics of Dutch economic growth for the period 1815-1997. By applying a simple econometric technique, important braking points in the timeseries are traced. It seems that three phases of growth can be discerned and that these phases are characterized by different types of technology (steam, electricity as well as information and communication technology). The Dutch economy has not generated an overall productivity improvement from the first and third technological phase, but has been successful in exploiting the technological opportunities of the second phase.