Public enterprise revisited : a closer look at the 1954 79 UK labour productivity record 1. Introduction 2. Selection of the sample 3. The intertemporal labour productivity comparisons 4. US UK labour productivity comparisons 5. Questions of interpretation The book compares the 1954 79 labour productivity record of 5 expanding public sector industries to that of 24 expanding capital intensive mass production industries in the British private sector. The author shows that the public sector industries labour productivity growth was significantly faster than that of the private sector industries. Strikingly he also finds that the state owned industries were narrowing their productivity gap with their US counterparts at a significantly faster rate than the private sector industries. Dr Iordanoglou concludes that it is possible that public ownership had in the historical period investigated a long term positive effect on these industries