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作者：Saavedra, Martin
作者单位：Rutgers University System; Rutgers University New Brunswick
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作者：Mejia, Javier
作者单位：Stanford University
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作者：Duran, Xavier; Guerra-Espana, Jorge
摘要：The slow adoption of wagon transport in the Andes is a puzzle. We examine it by developing a threshold technology-adoption model calibrated using human and mule energy consumption and unique historical data from a human trail and the first wagon road in the Andes. Model predictions align with historical social choices. Pre-Columbians selected a straight, steep, short route for human porters to reduce energy costs, while the Spanish used it with mule packs. Late nineteenth-century transport dem...
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作者：Robles-Baez, Christian; Medina, Luis Fernando; Bucheli, Marcelo
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作者：Edwards, Eric C.; Thurman, Walter N.
作者单位：University of California Davis; University of California System; University of California Davis; North Carolina State University
摘要：The Corn Belt is famously responsible for the bulk of U.S. corn production, and over half of its production comes from counties that rely on artificial drainage. We trace the history of this extensive investment in farmland and document the importance of a key institutional innovation, the drainage management district, which increased the land value of naturally wet eastern U.S. counties by 20-37 percent ($16.8-18.7 billion in 2020 dollars). While dramatically increasing agricultural productiv...
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作者：Grant, Arthur H. Cole
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作者：Anbil, Sriya
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
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作者：Berger, Thor; Ostermeyer, Vinzent
作者单位：Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS); Uppsala University; Lund University; Lund University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
摘要：This paper documents how the advent of the limited liability corporation contributed to the diffusion of steam technology during Sweden's industrialization. Using longitudinal establishment-level data, we show that incorporation sharply raised the probability that industrial establishments adopted steam. Incorporation facilitated technology adoption partly by enabling smaller establishments to expand to a greater scale, where the use of steam became feasible. These results highlight that low b...
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作者：Kedrosky, Davis; Palma, Nuno
作者单位：Northwestern University; University of Manchester
摘要：As late as 1750, Portugal had a high output per head by Western European standards. Yet just a century later, Portugal was this region's poorest country. In this paper, we show that the discovery of massive quantities of gold in Brazil over the eighteenth century played a key role in the long-run development of Portugal. The country suffered from an economic and political resource curse. A counterfactual based on synthetic control methods suggests that by 1800 Portugal's GDP per capita was 40 ...
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作者：Wu, Jing
作者单位：Princeton University
摘要：This paper investigates the relationship between economic conditions and incarceration in the postbellum United States. Leveraging unique administrative prison records in Missouri from 1850 to 1931 and the differential exposure to national agricultural price changes across counties, I find that positive economic shocks reduce prison admission rates for all crime categories, and negative shocks increase prison admission rates, with the relationship being larger for negative shocks. Although rac...
