EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                EHS Abstract Submission
                    (c) 1996 EH.Net
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              Name:  Susan Wolcott
             Email:  scw at temple.vm.edu
       Institution:  Department of Economics, Temple University

         Co-author:  Gregory Clark, Department of Economics, University of
California, Davis

             Title:  Why Nations Fail: Managerial Decisions and Performance
                     in Indian Cotton Textiles, 1900-1938.

  Internet Address
of abstracted work:

           By mail:
                     Department of Economics
                     Temple University
                     Philadelphia, PA 19122
                     U.S.A.

          Language:  English

          Abstract:
   1900-1938 saw a decisive shift in the fortunes of India and Japan.
Japan experienced broad economic growth, while India stagnated.  This
divergence in national fortunes was reflected in the performance of their
leading modern industry, cotton textiles.  Labor productivity in spinning
in Japan quadrupled between 1900 and 1938.  In India little changed.  The
link between national economic fortunes and textile industry performance
suggests that the obstacles impeding the Indian textile industry may have
been the same as those slowing economic growth in all of India.  The poor
performance in textiles is widely attributed to weak management in India.
By an analysis of managerial decisions in the Indian industry we show that
on all measurable dimensions Indian managers were performing as well as
they could.  The problem instead was the one factor they could not change -
Indian workers.

      Bibliography:  May 1996

           Subject:  D
 Geographical Area:  2
    Country/Region:  India, Japan, England
       Time Period:  8