Public and Private Ownership of British Industry 1820-1990

by Foreman-Peck, James; Millward, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780198203599
• ISBN10: 0198203594
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-06-30
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Britain led the way for much of the world with industrial privatization during the 1980s. Yet the historical origins of the process have rarely been discussed. This study shows how a common set of problems raised by basic industries, such as railways, gas, water, electricity, and telecommunications, have triggered varying responses of public policy over the last two centuries. In this original analysis, James Foreman-Peck and Robert Millward provide a coherent and thorough history of the network industries, which continue to play an important role in the British economy.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction: Government and the Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries	p. 1
Competition in the New Network Technology Industries 1820-1870	p. 10
The Political Response to Market Failure: Railways and Other National Communications Networks 1870-1914	p. 66
Prices, Profits, and Government: Gas and Telegraph in the Late Nineteenth Century	p. 122
Explaining the Shift to Public Ownership at the Local Level: The Halcyon Days of Municipal Ownership 1870-1920	p. 162
Ownership and Cost Effectiveness: Evidence from the Early Twentieth Century	p. 197
International Comparisons of Performance in National Networks in the Inter-War Period	p. 240
The Causes and Content of the 1940s Nationalizations	p. 274
The Performance of the Nationalized Industries 1950-1985	p. 300
Privatization of Industry in the 1980s	p. 319
Networks in Perspective	p. 340
Bibliography	p. 348
Index	p. 375
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