Industrial Organization and Technological Change: The Decline of the British Cotton Industry*

William Lazonick

Business History Review, 1983, vol. 57, issue 2, 195-236

Abstract: In this important study Professor Lazonick provides an astute reappraisal of why Britain's once dominant economy has failed to meet the challenges of international competition in the twentieth century. The vehicle for his discussion is cotton manufacture, the industry which, through the technological and commercial innovations of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, made Britain the leading industrial power. Among Dr. Lazonick's questions are why did Britain's preeminance in this industry come to an end? Why did technological innovation yield to stagnation? Why did inefficient modes of economic organization persist in the face of manifest inadequacy? And what does the history of this industry have to teach us about recent economic theory?

Date: 1983
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