We study the importance of technology and institutions in determining the size of markets in five different countries and fifteen different German states. The setting of 19th century Europe presents a unique opportunity to address this issue, since it witnessed fundamental change in both...

We argue theoretically and document empirically that aging leads to greater (industrial) automation, and in particular, to more intensive use and development of robots. Using US data, we document that robots substitute for middle-aged workers (those between the ages of 36 and 55). We then show...

We present a framework for understanding the effects of automation and other types of technological changes on labor demand, and use it to interpret changes in US employment over the recent past. At the center of our framework is the allocation of tasks to capital and labor—the task content of...

We examine the concerns that new technologies will render labor redundant in a framework in which tasks previously performed by labor can be automated and new versions of existing tasks, in which labor has a comparative advantage, can be created. In a static version where capital is fixed and...

This paper examines how international flows of technological knowledge affect economic performance across industries and firms in different countries. Motivated by the large share of the world's technology investments made by firms that are active across borders, we focus on international trade...

Employing a sample of renowned U.S. inventors that combines biographical detail with information on the patents they received over their careers, we highlight the impact of early U.S. patent institutions in providing broad access to economic opportunity and in encouraging trade in new...

I discuss the concept and empirical importance of international technology diffusion from the point of view of recent work on endogenous technological change. In this literature, technology is viewed as technological knowledge. I first review the major concepts, and how international technology...

The growth of the U.S. economy over the nineteenth century was characterized by a sharp acceleration in the rate of inventive activity and a dramatic rise in the relative importance of highly specialized inventors as generators of new technological knowledge. Relying on evidence compiled from...

For those who think of Cleveland as a decaying rustbelt city, it may seem difficult to believe that this northern Ohio port was once a hotbed of high-tech startups, much like Silicon Valley today. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cleveland played a leading role in the...

Recent scholarly literature explains the spread of in-house research labs during the early 20th century by pointing to the information problems involved in contracting for technology. We argue that these difficulties have been overemphasized and that in fact a substantial trade in patented...