Document Type

Other

Publication Date

Spring 2025

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Abstract

The central arguments of my book are first, that contrary to conventional wisdom, productivity in U.S. manufacturing declined during the Second World War, and second, that little of the learning associated with producing military durables had lasting supply-side benefits. The main reason productivity declined was that the war forced sudden, radical, and ultimately temporary changes in the product mix. The main reason the benefits of learning failed to endure is that most were product-specific, and soon after or in some cases even before VJ day, the United States stopped making most of the goods whose production had given rise to the learning.

These arguments are based on a blend of statistical and narrative evidence. Most who have read the book, and many who haven’t, find them persuasive. Within this group are participants in this symposium, as well as readers and reviewers on Amazon and elsewhere. But not everyone is on board. Bob Gordon, for example, remains a skeptic. I take this opportunity to consider why some might continue to have reservations and why I believe the arguments stand. I discuss as well some of the avenues for future research suggested by contributors to this symposium.

Comments

Open access to this article is funded by Santa Clara University Library.

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

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