Education and Catch-up in the Industrial Revolution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Becker, Sascha O.; Hornung, Erik; Woessmann, Ludger
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Munich
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.3.3.92
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 92-126
• 关键词: economic-growth; institutions; TECHNOLOGY; distance; frontier; england; SYSTEM; TRADE

摘要

Research increasingly stresses the role of human capital in modern economic development. Existing historical evidence-mostly from British textile industries-however, rejects that formal education was important for the Industrial Revolution. Our new evidence from technological follower Prussia uses a unique school enrollment and factory employment database linking 334 counties from pre-industrial 1816 to two industrial phases in 1849 and 1882. Using pre-industrial education as instrument for later education and controlling extensively for pre-industrial development, we find that basic education is significantly associated with nontextile industrialization in both phases of the Industrial Revolution. Panel data models with county fixed effects confirm the results. (JEL I20, J24, N13, N33, N63)