We document an empirical relationship between the cross-country adoption of technologies and the degree of long-term historical relatedness between human populations. Historical relatedness is measured using genetic distance, a measure of the time since two populations' last common ancestors. We...

We present a theory of spatial development. A continuum of locations in a geographic area choose each period how much to innovate (if at all) in manufacturing and services. Locations can trade subject to transport costs and technology diffuses spatially across locations. The result is an...

Why do some countries industrialize much earlier than others? One widely-accepted answer is that markets need to be large enough for producers to find it profitable to bear the fixed cost of introducing modern technologies. This insight, however, has limited explanatory power, as illustrated by...

A market-size-only theory of industrialization cannot explain why England developed nearly two centuries before China. One shortcoming of such a theory is its exclusive focus on producers. We show that once we incorporate the incentives of factor suppliers' organizations such as craft guilds,...