Failing to level up? Industrial policy and productivity in interwar Northern Ireland

David Jordan

No 23-04, QUCEH Working Paper Series from Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History

Abstract: Northern Ireland's productivity performance has persistently been the worst of any UK region. This is despite having the apparent benefit of subnational industrial policy since the 1920s. Can institutions - through the interaction between business and local policymakers - explain this longstanding productivity gap? Existing literature focuses on post-war policy in Northern Ireland, but neglects its interwar origins. Using new comparisons of regional and sectoral industrial productivity, and new archival evidence for Stormont's interwar industrial policy, demonstrates regional institutions created barriers to productivity growth, restricting the development of new industries in Northern Ireland. Further UK devolution will not automatically promote regional convergence: its success will depend upon the institutional incentives faced by subnational policymakers.

Keywords: productivity; industrial policy; institutions; devolution; interwar manufacturing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H20 N64 O43 R50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-his, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/268425/1/1832921166.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202304

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in QUCEH Working Paper Series from Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().