Fighting for Growth: Labor Scarcity and Technological Progress During the British Industrial Revolution *
Type
conference contribution
Date Issued
2022-12-06
Author(s)
Abstract
We collect new data and present new evidence on the effects of labor scarcity on the adoption of labor-saving technology in industrializing England. Where the British armed forces recruited heavily, more machines that economized on labor were adopted. For purposes of identification, we focus on naval recruitment. Using warships' ease of access to coastal locations as an instrument, we show that exogenous shocks to labor scarcity led to technology adoption. The same shocks are only weakly associated with the adoption of non-labor saving technologies. Importantly, there is also a synergy between skill abundance and labor scarcity boosting technology adoption. Where labor shortages led to labor-saving machine adoption, technology afterwards improved more rapidly.
Keywords
Technology adoption
learning-by-doing
Industrial Revolution
Event Title
Meeting of the European Economic Association joint with the European Meeting of the Econometric Society 2023
Event Location
Barcelona (Spain)
Event Date
28-08-2023 to 30-08-2023
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Voth Caprettini Trew - Fighting for Growth.pdf
Size
6.73 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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