Factor Costs and the Diffusion of Ring Spinning in Britain Prior to World War I
重新审视了桑德伯格关于19世纪末英国纺织业技术选择的经典分析，指出其方法问题和实证缺陷，发现一战前环锭纺纱的实际扩散程度远低于桑德伯格的估计，而行业垂直专业化结构是制约其更快推广的主要要素成本约束。
A key contribution to the attempt by "new" economic historians to absolve the British economy of the charge of technological conservatism in the late nineteenth century is Lars Sandberg's analysis of the choice of technique between ring spinning and mule spinning. In this article I demonstrate that Sandberg's analysis has serious problems and that a careful reexamination of the rings versus mules question is in order. While I point out some of the methodological problems of the neoclassical approach to choice of technique, the major focus of this paper is on the empirical shortcomings of Sandberg's analysis. My primary empirical conclusions are that the extent of the diffusion of ring spinning prior to World War I was much less than Sandberg's analysis would indicate and that it was the vertically specialized structure of the industry which imposed the major factor-cost constraint on its more rapid introduction.