IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/0342.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Cutting Edge of Modernity: Machine Tools in the United States and Germany 1930-1945

Author

Listed:
  • Ristuccia , C.A.
  • Tooze, J.A.

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the difference between US and European manufacturing before and during the World War II, focusing on the key technology in the metal-working sector: machine tools. We present a new data set covering the installed capacity of metal-working tools in the United States and Germany for the period 1930-1945. The existing literature is heavily dependent on assumptions about the different type of machine tools in use on either side of the Atlantic. So far, systematic comparison has been limited to case studies. This is the first attempt to quantify the differences in this key technology for the entirety of metal-working in both economies. The enormous detail of the statistical sources we have uncovered allows us to combine aggregation and a degree of specificity, which exceeds that of any previous case study. In the German case, the original data is divided into well over a hundred sub-categories. For comparative purposes, we have identified 19 major classes of machines, which aggregate over 50 sub-categories. Our results suggest the need for a far more nuanced understanding of metal-working than the dichotomous picture of American mass manufacture, reliant on special-purpose tools, and European craft manufacturing employing general-purpose machinery. For 1930, we find a remarkable similarity in machine to worker ratios between Germany and the United States. There are differences in certain key areas. However, the US stock of metal-working tools is not yet distinguished by a clear commitment to mass production technology. For the period after 1935, until the early 1940s, our data suggest a remarkable degree of convergence. The American stock stagnated. In some areas, there was disinvestment. And the average age of machinery rose dramatically. By contrast, Germany entered a period of rapid catch-up, which appears to have continued into the early years of the war. By 1940, German metal-working came close to matching its American counterpart in terms of the number of workers employed and the quantity and types of machines installed. German machines were, on average, far younger. This process of catching-up, however, was dramatically reversed during World War II. Over a period of no more than four years the American stock expanded by over eighty percent and growth was markedly concentrated in key categories of mass production equipment. It appears that it was only in this period that mass production machinery came to truly dominate US metal-working. German investment, albeit moving in the same direction, failed to match the new intensity of American commitment to mass production in some key machinery classes

Suggested Citation

  • Ristuccia , C.A. & Tooze, J.A., 2003. "The Cutting Edge of Modernity: Machine Tools in the United States and Germany 1930-1945," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0342, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
  • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0342
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe0342.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Cristiano Andrea Ristuccia & Adam Tooze, 2013. "Machine tools and mass production in the armaments boom: Germany and the United States, 1929–44," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 66(4), pages 953-974, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Machine tools; Metal working. US; Germany; Production technology; WW2;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L61 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Metals and Metal Products; Cement; Glass; Ceramics
    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment
    • L64 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Other Machinery; Business Equipment; Armaments
    • N42 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N62 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N64 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Europe: 1913-
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:cam:camdae:0342. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    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.