Fleet economies in an imperial federation

Would a British imperial federation build more ships than its members did separately?

Probably, because common designs, academies, and training systems would reduce duplicated expenditure.

The answer emphasizes economies of scale rather than simply combining national budgets. A federation would pay once for a common design instead of funding several parallel design efforts. Shared academies and training systems would also reduce duplicated institutional costs. Those savings could move resources toward ship construction, making a larger combined fleet plausible even without assuming dramatically higher total spending.