cCreation-Date: 2013-09

This paper provides a broad‐based empirical analysis of the effects of technological change on skill acquisition in the years that led to the British Industrial Revolution. Based on a unique set of data on apprenticeship between 1710 and 1772, the formal system for skill acquisition in this...

In this paper we explore the response of the supply of human capital to changes in demand in the British Industrial Revolution. We use annual information from the Stamp Tax registers on apprentices in England between 1710-1803 and examine the response of tuitions to changes in the annual number...

Why is modern society capable of cumulative innovation? In A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy, Joel Mokyr persuasively argues that sustained technological progress stemmed from a change in cultural beliefs. The change occurred gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth...

Why is modern society capable of cumulative innovation? In A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy, Joel Mokyr persuasively argues that sustained technological progress stemmed from a change in cultural beliefs. The change occurred gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth...

By merging individual data on valuable patents granted in Prussia in the late nineteenth century with county level information on literacy and income tax revenues we show that increases in the stock of human capital not only improved workers ́productivity but also accelerated innovative...

The Renaissance era in Western Europe was marked by a flourishing of economic and cultural life that gave rise to numerous discoveries and inventions. This paper studies the role played by Greek migrants in this process. Using a newly constructed dataset on Greek migrants in Europe after the...

In this paper we investigate the impact of technological change on inequalityin the presence of a landed elite using a standard unified growth model. We measure inequality by the ratio between land rent and wages and show that, before the onset of the fertility transition, technological progress...