This Paper examines city formation in a country whose urban population is growing steadily over time, with new cities required to accommodate this growth. In contrast to most of the literature there is immobility of housing and urban infrastructure, and investment in these assets is taken on the...

We develop a new methodology for quantifying the tasks undertaken within occupations using 3,000 verbs from around 12,000 occupational descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOTs). Using micro-data from the United States from 1880-2000, we find an increase in the employment share...

The steam engine is widely regarded as the icon of the Industrial Revolution and a prime example of a ‘General Purpose Technology,’ and yet its contribution to growth is far from transparent. This Paper examines the role that a particular innovative design in steam power, the Corliss engine,...