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The Economic Institutions of Construction in London after the Great Fire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2018

JUDY Z. STEPHENSON
JUDY Z. STEPHENSON*
Affiliation:
Judy Z. Stephenson is Lecturer in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment, at The Bartlett School, University College London. She researches labor markets and organizations in early modern London. She gained her PhD from LSE in 2016 and has been a member of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure and a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. Her first book, Contracts and Pay: Work in London Construction1660–1785 was published by Palgrave in 2019. E-mail: judy.stephenson@wadh.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article contributes to literature on the role of “firms” in the early modern English economy by exploring contracts for works between the Crown, the City of London, and large construction firms that built the Greenwich Hospital, City churches, and St. Paul’s Cathedral from 1670 to 1712. Primary sources show varying arrangements to pricing, mitigating risk, and securing finance occurred without the costs of intermediaries. Clients pushed financial and operating risks onto contractors through complex contracting systems that enabled and supported a number of coordination mechanisms in the market. The article argues that contracts rather than firms should be the unit of analysis for those wishing to examine productivity and changes in early modern business.

Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 229 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2018. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Scranton, P. “Diversity in Diversity: Flexible Production and American Industrialization, 1880–1930.” Business History Review 65, no. 1 (1991): 27–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Styles, J. “Product Innovation in Early Modern London.” Past & Present 168 (August 2000): 124–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, M. “Henry Cheere, Sculptor and Businessman and John Cheere I.” Burlington Magazine 100, no. (1958): 232–240.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. E. “The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 87, no. 3 (1981): 548–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, O. E. “Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractual Relations.” Journal of Law & Economics 22, no. 2 (1979): 233–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
British Library, LondonGoogle Scholar
Lambeth Palace Library, LondonGoogle Scholar
London Metropolitan Archives, LondonGoogle Scholar
The National Archives, Kew, LondonGoogle Scholar
Westminster Abbey Muniments, LondonGoogle Scholar
Berg, M. The Age of Manufactures, 1700–1820: Industry, Innovation, and Work in Britain, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Berg, M., ed. Markets and Manufacture in Early Industrial Europe. London: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Berg, M., Hudson, P., and Sonenscher, M., eds. Manufacture in Town and Country before the Factory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolton, Arthur T., & Hendry, H. D.. Wren Society. Vols. XIII, XV, XVI, XVIII. Oxford: Printed for the Wren Society at the University Press, 1924–1943.Google Scholar
Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Klein, A., Overton, M., and Leeuwen, B.. British Economic Growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. W. P. Building St. Paul’s . London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.Google Scholar
Colvin, H. M. A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 1660–1840. London: Murray, 1954.Google Scholar
Colvin, H. M., Mordaunt Crook, J., and Downes, K.. The History of the King’s Works. Vol. V, 1660–1782. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1976.Google Scholar
Epstein, S. R. Freedom and Growth: The Rise of States and Markets in Europe, 1300–1750. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J. Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964.Google Scholar
Ive, G., and Gruneberg, S. The Economics of the Modern Construction Sector. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knoop, D., and Jones, G. P.. The Medieval Mason: An Economic History of English Stone Building. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Langley, B. The London Prices of Bricklayers Materials and Works, Both of New Building and Repairs &c . 2nd ed. London: New Head, 1750.Google Scholar
McKellar, E. The Birth of Modern London . Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Mokyr, J. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1850. The New Economic History of Britain Series. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Muldrew, C. The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbet, J. A Proper Price . London: Stoke Publications, 1997.Google Scholar
North, D. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perks, S. The History of the Mansion House. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.Google Scholar
Pollard, Sidney. The Genesis of Modern Management: A Study of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. London: Edward Arnold, 1965.Google Scholar
Satoh, A. Building in Britain: The Origins of a Modern Industry. Aldershot, UK: Scholar Press 1995.Google Scholar
Scranton, P. Proprietary Capitalism: The Textile Manufacture at Philadelphia, 1800–1885. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Sheppard, F. H. W., ed. Survey of London. Volumes 31 and 32. London: Athlone, 1963.Google Scholar
Vrijhoef, R. Supply Chain Integration in the Building Industry. Amsterdam: IOS, 2011.Google Scholar
Wilson, A., and Thompson, J. F.. The Making of Modern Management: British Management in Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, O. E. Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications: A Study in the Economics of Internal Organization. New York: Free Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. W. P. “The Finances of the Carpenter in England 1660–1710: A Case Study on the Implications of the Change from Craft to Designer-Based Construction.” In L’Edilizia Prima della Rivoluzione Industriale, edited by Cavaciocchi, S., 313–346, Secc. XIII–XVIII. Prato: Instituto Internazionale di Storia Economica, 2005.Google Scholar
Cooney, E. W. “The Origins of the Victorian Master Builders.” Economic History Review 8 (1955): 167–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eccles, R. G. “Bureaucratic Versus Craft Administration: The Relationship of Market Structure to the Construction Firm.” Administrative Science Quarterly 26, no. 3 (1981): 449–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eccles, R. G. “The Quasifirm in the Construction Industry.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 2, no. 4 (1981): 335–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elfenbein, D. W., and Zenger, T. R.. “What Is a Relationship Worth? Repeated Exchange and the Development and Deployment of Relational Capital.” Organization Science , 25, no. 1 (2013): 222–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illffe, R. “Material Doubts: Hooke, Artisan Culture and the Exchange of Information in 1670s London.” British Journal for the History of Science 28, no. 3 (1995): 285–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, F. “Profit and Entrepreneurial Functions.” Journal of Economic History 2, no. S1 (1942): 126–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langlois, R., and Cosgel, M.. “Frank Knight on Risk, Uncertainty, and the Firm: A New Interpretation.” Economic Inquiry 31, no. 3 (1993): 456–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latham, Mark. “‘The City Has Been Wronged and Abused!’: Institutional Corruption in the Eighteenth Century.” Economic History Review 63, no. 8 (2015): 1038–1061.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, H., Arditi, D., and Wang, Z.. “Determinants of Transaction Costs In Construction Projects.” Journal of Civil Engineering and Management 21, no. 5 (2015): 548–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamoreaux, N., Raff, D., & Temin, , “Beyond Markets and Hierarchies: Toward a New Synthesis of American Business History.” American Historical Review 108, no. 2 (2003): 404–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mobus, M. “Surviving Late Payments: Strategies of Christopher Wren’s Masons from Burford.” Proceedings of the first Conference of the Construction History Society 1, no. 1 (2014): 273–279.Google Scholar
Muldrew, Craig. “‘Hard Food for Midas’: Cash and Its Social Value in Early Modern England.” Past & Present 170 (2001): 78–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reve, T., and Levitt, R. E.. “Organization and Governance in Construction.” International Journal of Project Management 2, no. 1 (1984): 17–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riello, G. “Strategies and Boundaries: Subcontracting and the London Trades in the Long Eighteenth Century.” Enterprise & Society 9, no. 2 (2008): 243–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scranton, P. “Diversity in Diversity: Flexible Production and American Industrialization, 1880–1930.” Business History Review 65, no. 1 (1991): 27–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Styles, J. “Product Innovation in Early Modern London.” Past & Present 168 (August 2000): 124–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, M. “Henry Cheere, Sculptor and Businessman and John Cheere I.” Burlington Magazine 100, no. (1958): 232–240.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. E. “The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 87, no. 3 (1981): 548–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, O. E. “Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractual Relations.” Journal of Law & Economics 22, no. 2 (1979): 233–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
British Library, LondonGoogle Scholar
Lambeth Palace Library, LondonGoogle Scholar
London Metropolitan Archives, LondonGoogle Scholar
The National Archives, Kew, LondonGoogle Scholar
Westminster Abbey Muniments, LondonGoogle Scholar