This paper reconstructs Revealed Comparative Advantages (RCA) and Economic Complexity Indices (ECI) for a large number of countries in the second half of the 19th century, by using data from the catalogues of five universal exhibitions held in Paris in 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1900. This...

This paper investigates the relevance for innovation of international exhibitions. While the first of these events, i.e. London's 1851 Great Exhibition, was an "exhibition of innovations", many of the subsequent ones, following the model of industrial exhibitions developed in France, did not...

According to the "cleansing hypothesis", recessions are periods in which productivity-enhancing reallocation intensifies, shifting resources away from less efficient to more efficient firms at a greater pace. Does the Great Recession of 2008-2010 fit this view? We address this question, studying...

This paper investigates the relevance for innovation of international exhibitions. While the first of these events, i.e. London's 1851 Great Exhibition, was an "exhibition of innovations", many of the subsequent ones, following the model of industrial exhibitions developed in France, did not...

This paper reconstructs Revealed Comparative Advantages (RCA) and Economic Complexity Indices (ECI) for a large number of countries in the second half of the 19th century, by using data from the catalogues of five universal exhibitions held in Paris in 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1900. This...

This paper investigates how investment in automation-intensive goods impacts on worker flows at the firm level and, within firms, across occupational categories. Resorting to an integrated dataset encompassing detailed information on firms, their imports, and employer-employee data for French...