I reflect on the role of modern economic history in economics. I document a substantial increase in the percentage of papers devoted to economic history in the top-5 economic journals over the last few decades. I discuss how the study of the past has contributed to economics by providing ground...

This paper shows how to build algorithms that use graphics processing units (GPUs) installed in most modern computers to solve dynamic equilibrium models in economics. In particular, we rely on the compute unified device architecture (CUDA) of NVIDIA GPUs. We illustrate the power of the approach...

The last 40 years have seen huge innovations in computing technology and data availability. Data derived from millions of administrative records or by using (as we do) new methods of data generation such as text mining are now common. New data often requires new methods, which in turn can...

The recent digitization of complete count census data is an extraordinary opportunity for social scientists to create large longitudinal datasets by linking individuals from one census to another or from other sources to the census. We evaluate different automated methods for record linkage,...

We evaluate whether hospital adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) leads to increases in billing where financial gains are large or where hassle costs of complete coding are low. The 2007 Medicare payment reform varied both financial incentives and hassle costs of coding. We find no...

This paper examines technology sophistication in establishments. To comprehensively measure technology sophistication, we create a grid that covers key business functions and the technologies used to conduct them. Analyzing data from over 21,000 establishments in 15 countries, we find that the...

We consider a neoclassical interpretation of Germany and Japan's rapid postwar growth that relies on a catch-up mechanism through capital accumulation where technology is embodied in new capital goods. Using a putty-clay model of production and investment, we are able to capture many of the key...

We investigate what happens to hours worked after a positive shock to technology, using the aggregate technology series computed in Basu, Fernald and Kimball (1999). We conclude that hours worked rise after such a shock

Are some management practices akin to a technology that can explain firm and national productivity, or do they simply reflect contingent management styles? We collect data on core management practices from over 11,000 firms in 34 countries. We find large cross-country differences in the adoption...