From the counting house to the modern office: Explaining Anglo-American productivity differences in services, 1870-1990

• 成果类型: Review
• 署名作者: University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050702001614
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 967-998
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; britain; TECHNOLOGY; Germany; ORGANIZATION; INFORMATION; industries; employers; ECONOMICS; ranking

摘要

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 modem 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.