[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cca/wpaper/400.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The measurement of production movements: lessons from the engineering industry in Italy, 1861-1913

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Fenoaltea
Abstract
In the literature the (Italian) engineering industry is seen as one that transformed metal into machines; its time path is inferred from that of its consumption of metal. Newly recovered evidence indicates that far more metal was turned into (traditional) hardware than into (modern) machines. Machine production grew rapidly from a very small base: metal consumption fails to capture this change in the product mix, and understates the growth of new production at constant prices. Moreover, maintenance activity was in general as significant as new production. Maintenance was labor-intensive rather than metal-intensive, trend-dominated rather than cyclical, and relatively larger, next to new production, in 1861 than in 1913: metal consumption overstates the growth rate of the industry’s total product at constant prices, and much overstates its cyclical volatility. Technical progress was negligible in maintenance, but rapid in new production: constant-price-weighted physical measures fail to capture productivity growth, and even late-weighted series overstate the growth of the industry’s real product. These results are not tied to conditions peculiar to pre-War Italy: the new estimates presented here pave the way for emending, or at least reevaluating, the engineering-industry product series reconstructed for other times or places.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Fenoaltea, 2014. "The measurement of production movements: lessons from the engineering industry in Italy, 1861-1913," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 400, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    • Handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:400
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/no.400.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2019. "Of economics and statistics: the Gerschenkron effect," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 72(290), pages 195-205.
    2. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2011. "On the Structure of the Italian Economy, 1861-1913," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 61-72.
    3. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2016. "The Measurement of Production: Lessons from the Engineering Industry in Italy, 1911," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, volume 32, pages 73-145, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. Easterlin,Richard A., 2006. "The Reluctant Economist," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521685115, September.
    5. Toniolo, Gianni (ed.), 2013. "The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199936694.
    6. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2015. "Italian Industrial Production, 1861-1913: A Statistical Reconstruction. A. Introduction," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 412, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    7. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2014. "The fruits of disaggregation: the general engineering industry in Italy, 1861-1913," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 358, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    8. Carlo Ciccarelli & Stefano Fenoaltea, 2009. "Shipbuilding in Italy, 1861-1913: the burden of the evidence," Historical Social Research (Section 'Cliometrics'), Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 34(2), pages 333-373.
    9. Solomon Fabricant, 1940. "Director's Note to "The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937"," NBER Chapters, in: The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937, pages -17, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Felice, Emanuele & Carreras, Albert, 2012. "When did modernization begin? Italy's industrial growth reconsidered in light of new value-added series, 1911–1951," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 443-460.
    11. Fenoaltea,Stefano, 2014. "The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107658080, September.
    12. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2010. "The reconstruction of historical national accounts: the case of Italy," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 63(252), pages 77-96.
    13. Gerschenkron, Alexander, 1955. "Notes on the Rate of Industrial Growth in Italy, 1881–1913," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 360-375, December.
    14. Solomon Fabricant, 1940. "The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fabr40-1.
    15. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 1971. "Railroads and Italian industrial growth, 1861-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 325-351.
    16. Sims, Christopher A, 1969. "Theoretical Basis for a Double Deflated Index of Real Value Added," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(4), pages 470-471, November.
    17. Solomon Fabricant, 1940. "Index to "The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937"," NBER Chapters, in: The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937, pages 663-685, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2003. "Notes on the Rate of Industrial Growth in Italy, 1861–1913," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 695-735, September.
    19. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2015. "Industrial Employment in Italy, 1911: The Burden of the Census Data," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 225-246.
    20. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2003. "Peeking Backward: Regional Aspects of Industrial Growth in Post-Unification Italy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(4), pages 1059-1102, December.
    21. Solomon Fabricant, 1940. "Preface to "The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937"," NBER Chapters, in: The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899-1937, pages -15--12, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Alberto Baffigi, 2011. "Italian National Accounts, 1861-2011," Quaderni di storia economica (Economic History Working Papers) 18, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    23. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2001. "The Growth of Italy's Cotton Industry, 1861-1913: a Statistical Reconstruction," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 139-172.
    24. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 1969. "Public Policy and Italian Industrial Development, 1861–1913," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 176-179, March.
    25. Stefano Fenoaltea, 1976. "Real Value Added and the Measurement of Industrial Production," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 1, pages 111-137, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2015. "The measurement of production movements: Lessons from the general engineering industry in Italy, 1861–1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 19-37.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2015. "The measurement of production movements: Lessons from the general engineering industry in Italy, 1861–1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 19-37.
    2. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2015. "Italian Industrial Production, 1861-1913: A Statistical Reconstruction. A. Introduction," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 412, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    3. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2020. "The fruits of disaggregation: The engineering industry, tariff protection, and the industrial investment cycle in Italy, 1861-1913," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 73(292), pages 77-110.
    4. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2017. "The Growth of the Italian Economy, 1861-1913: Revised Second-Generation Production-Side Estimates," MPRA Paper 83508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2018. "The Growth of the Italian Economy, 1861-1913: Revised Second-Generation Expenditure-Side Estimates," MPRA Paper 88016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Emanuele Felice & Josep Pujol Andreu, 2013. "GDP and life expectancy in Italy and Spain over the long-run (1861-2008): insights from a time-series approach," UHE Working papers 2013_06, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    7. Emanuele Felice, 2015. "La stima e l?interpretazione dei divari regionali nel lungo periodo: i risultati principali e alcune tracce di ricerca," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(3), pages 91-120.
    8. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2020. "Reconstructing The Past: The Measurement Of Aggregate Product," MPRA Paper 97042, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Emanuele Felice, 2019. "Rethinking the take-off: the role of services in the new economic history of Italy (1861–1951)," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 13(3), pages 405-442, September.
    10. Stefano Fenoaltea, 2018. "Spleen: the failures of the cliometric school," HHB Working Papers Series 14, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    11. Emanuele Felice, 2013. "Regional income inequality in Italy in the long run (1871–2001). Patterns and determinants," UHE Working papers 2013_08, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    12. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2020. "Reconstructing The Past: Italy's Historical National Accounts, 1861-1913," MPRA Paper 98350, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Felice, Emanuele & Carreras, Albert, 2012. "When did modernization begin? Italy's industrial growth reconsidered in light of new value-added series, 1911–1951," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 443-460.
    14. Emanuele Felice, 2017. "The socio-institutional divide. Explaining Italy's regional inequality over the long run," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 503, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    15. Carlo Ciccarelli & Tommaso Proietti, 2013. "Patterns of industrial specialisation in post-Unification Italy," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(3), pages 259-286, November.
    16. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 693-732.
    17. Daniel Kaufmann, 2016. "Is Deflation Costly After All? Evidence from Noisy Historical Data," KOF Working papers 16-421, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    18. repec:dgr:rugggd:199406 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Daniel Kaufmann, 2020. "Is deflation costly after all? The perils of erroneous historical classifications," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 614-628, August.
    20. Felice, Emanuele, 2014. "Il Mezzogiorno fra storia e pubblicistica. Una replica a Daniele e Malanima [Southern Italy between history and journalistic books. A reply to Daniele and Malanima]," MPRA Paper 55830, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Angus Maddison & Bart van Ark, 2002. "The International Comparison of Real Product and Productivity," Chapters, in: Angus Maddison & D. S. Prasada & William Shepherd (ed.), The Asian Economies in the Twentieth Century, chapter 2, pages 5-26, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    method; engineering; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N63 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:400. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Giovanni Bert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fccaait.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.