Technical Education and Economic Performance: Britain, 1850–1914

Abstract

Since the time of the British “Great Depression,” and with increasing urgency as the relative decline of the British economy has gathered pace in the twentieth century, economists and economic historians have sought to explain both depression and decline and to suggest remedies. Until recently, it has been fashionable to ascribe the decline to the failings of British management, often working in conjunction with workers and trade unions, and to focus attention particularly on the failure to innovate, to adopt inventions which would have significantly lowered British production costs and improved international competitiveness in the manufacturing industries which were the basis of British prosperity. In the last fifteen years, however, studies of specific industries and investment decisions have made this global explanation for British decline less attractive, so much so that a recent summary of these studies can conclude that: While some examples of “technological backwardness” and other types of failure have been found, and more undoubtedly remain to be found, it is not established that the failure rate was any higher than in other countries, including the United States and Germany, during the same period or than in Britain during earlier periods. Much less has it been shown that the British “entrepreneurial failures” in this period exceeded those in Germany and America by so much that they can materially have contributed to Britain's relative economic decline.