This paper examines the identity and origins of Swedish inventors prior to World War I drawing on the universe of patent records linked to census data. We document that the rise of innovation during Sweden's industrialization can largely be attributed to a small industrial elite belonging to the...

We exploit exogenous variation arising from the historical rollout of the Swedish railroad network across municipalities to identify the impacts of lowered interaction costs on innovative activity. A network connection led to a surge in local innovation due to an increased entry, productivity,...

We exploit exogenous variation arising from the historical rollout of the Swedish railroad network across municipalities to identify the impacts of lowered interaction costs on innovative activity. A network connection led to a surge in local innovation due to an increased entry, productivity,...

We exploit exogenous variation arising from the historical rollout of the Swedish railroad network across municipalities to identify the impacts of lowered interaction costs on innovative activity. A network connection led to a surge in local innovation due to an increased entry, productivity,...

In a comment to Karadja & Prawitz (2019), henceforth KP, Per Pettersson-Lidbom (2020), henceforth P-L, argues that the main results in KP are severely biased. He argues that KP's results are biased due to non-classical measurement error in emigration and due to confounders related to the...

We study the political effects of mass emigration to the United States in the 19th century using data from Sweden. To instrument for total emigration over several decades, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel...

In a comment to Karadja & Prawitz (2019), henceforth KP, Per Pettersson-Lidbom (2020), henceforth P-L, argues that the main results in KP are severely biased. He argues that KP's results are biased due to non-classical measurement error in emigration and due to confounders related to the...