Table of Contents

Introduction - government and the infrastructure in the 19th and 20th centuries; competition in the new network technology industries 1820-1870; the political response to market failure - railways and other national communications networks 1870-1914; prices, profits and government - gas and telegraph in the late-19th century; explaining the shift to public ownership at the local level - the halcyon days of municipal ownership 1870-1920; ownership and cost effectiveness - evidence from the early-20th century; international comparisons of performance in national networks in the inter-war period; the causes and content of the 1940s nationalizations; the performance of the nationalized industries 1950-1985; privatization of industry in the 1980s; networks in perspective.

Reviews

'This volume is the product of fruitful collaboration between two economic historians who have made a significant contribution to the study of public ownership in British industry from the early nineteenth century onwards. Foreman-Peck and Millward have produced a book which can be read with intellectual profit both by economic historians and economists interested in the evolution of government-industry relations where natural monopoly prevails.'
Maurice Kirby, Lancaster University, Labour History Review, Vol. 59, No. 3, Winter 1994
`The statistical data are new and important, and raise major issues of interpretation both of the expansion of public ownership and of the performance of network industries.'
Times Higher Education Supplement
`The core of this book is formed from work previously published by Foreman-Peck and Millward, but it is particularly valuable to have it brought together...a valuable study which should encourage others to investigate further this important field.'
Business History
`The impressive spectrum of contrasted examples indicate the complexities with which Foreman-Peck and Millward have chosen to grapple. Their interdisciplinary range of interests must inspire admiration ... an important, pioneering book.'
Theo Barker, History Today
`This is in many ways a model book. Problems are clearly stated, the necessary information ... supplied, detailed and sometimes sophisticated calculations carried out with whatever data are available, and conclusions presented that closely reflect the numerical results.'
Journal of Economic History
`This is in many ways a model book. Problems are clearly stated, the necessary information (and no more) supplied, detailed and sometimes sophisticated calculations carried out with whatever data are available, and conclusion presented that closely reflect the numerical results.'
Journal of Economic History