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作者：Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna; University of Siena
摘要：This paper examines the patterns of technology transfer from Britain to France during the early phases of industrializing using a dataset comprising all patents granted in France in the period 1791-1844. Exploiting the peculiarities of French legislation, we construct an array of patent quality indicators and investigate their determinants. We find that patents filed by British inventors or French inventors with personal connections to British inventors were of relatively higher quality. Overa...
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作者：Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS); Uppsala University; Lund University; Lund University; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN); University of London; University College London; University of Oxford; Stockholm University; Uppsala University; Lund University
摘要：We use historical census data to show that Sweden exhibited high levels of intergenerational occupational mobility several decades before the rise of the welfare state. Mobility rates were higher than in other nineteenth- and twentieth-century European countries, closer to those observed in the highly mobile nineteenth-century United States. We leverage mobility variation across Swedish municipalities to shed light on potential determinants: economic growth and migration are positively correla...
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作者：Grinnell College; University of London; University College London; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：How were unskilled workers selected and hired in preindustrial labor markets? We exploit records from the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, London (1672-1748), to analyze the hiring and employment histories of over 1,000 general building laborers, the benchmark category of unskilled workers in long-run wage series. Despite volatile demand, St Paul's created a stable workforce by rewarding the tenure of long-standing workers. More senior workers received more days of work each month, preferenc...
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作者：United States Department of Defense; United States Navy; Naval Postgraduate School; University of Warwick
摘要：We study the effect of railroads, the single largest public investment in colonial India, on human capital. Using district-level data on literacy and two different identification strategies, we find railroads had positive effects on literacy, in particular on male and English literacy. We show that railroads increased literacy by raising secondary and elite primary schooling, rather than vernacular primary schooling. Our mediation analysis suggests that non-agricultural income, urbanization, a...
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作者：[Anonymous]
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作者：University of Geneva
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作者：Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; National Bureau of Economic Research; Tulane University
摘要：Religious communities are important providers of social insurance. We show that risk associated with oil dependence facilitated the proliferation of religious communities throughout the U.S. South during the twentieth century. Known oil abundance predicts higher rates of church membership, which are not driven by selective migration or local economic development. Consistent with a social insurance channel, greater oil price volatility increases effects, while greater access to credit, state-le...
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作者：University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder
摘要：The economic history of the United States is that of Europeans and their institutions. Indigenous nations are absent. This absence is partly due to a lack of data but perhaps also to a perception that Indigenous communities contributed little to U.S. growth. Three case studies explore the economic complexity and social stratification across different nations/regions prior to contact. Migrants to the United States came not to an empty land but one with settled agriculture, complex production pr...
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作者：Yale University
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作者：University of St Andrews; Rice University
摘要：We study the impact of the 1907 Panic, the most severe economic crisis before the Great Depression, on the selection of Mexican immigration. We find that migrants were positively selected on height before the crisis. This pattern changed to negative selection during the crisis but returned to positive selection afterward. Adjustments in selection were partially mediated by the enganche, a historical labor-recruiting system that reduced migration costs but only for taller laborers with above-av...
