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The Transition to a New Economy After the Second Industrial Revolution

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Author Info
Andrew Atkeson
Patrick J. Kehoe

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Abstract

During the Second Industrial Revolution, 1860-1900, many new technologies, including electricity, were invented. These inventions launched a transition to a new economy, a period of about 70 years of ongoing, rapid technical change. After this revolution began, however, several decades passed before measured productivity growth increased. This delay is paradoxical from the point of view of the standard growth model. Historians hypothesize that this delay was due to the slow diffusion of new technologies among manufacturing plants together with the ongoing learning in plants after the new technologies had been adopted. The slow diffusion is thought to be due to manufacturers' reluctance to abandon their accumulated expertise with old technologies, which were embodied in the design of existing plants. Motivated by these hypotheses, we build a quantitative model of technology diffusion which we use to study this transition to a new economy. We show that it implies both slow diffusion and a delay in growth similar to that in the data.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 8676.

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Date of creation: Dec 2001
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8676

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O4 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
O47 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Thomas Cooley & Ramon Marimon & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2003. "Aggregate Consequences of Limited Contract Enforceability," NBER Working Papers 10132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Dirk Krueger & Krishna B. Kumar, 2003. "US-Europe Differences in Technology-Driven Growth: Quantifying the Role of Education," NBER Working Papers 10001, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Pedro S. Amaral & Erwan Quintin, 2005. "Finance Matters," Macroeconomics 0502007, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Díaz Chao, A., 2003. "El efecto de las tecnologías digitales en la competitividad de la empresa española./The effect of digital technologies in the spanish firm competitivenses," Estudios de Economía Aplicada, Estudios de Economía Aplicada, vol. 21, pages 521-534, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Pástor, Luboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2005. "Technological Revolutions and Stock Prices," CEPR Discussion Papers 5428, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Rodolfo Manuelli & Ananth Seshadri, 2003. "Frictionless Technology Diffusion: The Case of Tractors," NBER Working Papers 9604, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell, 2000. "The IT revolution : is it evident in the productivity numbers?," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 49-78. [Downloadable!]
  8. Erwan Quintin, 2008. "Contract enforcement and the size of the informal economy," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 395-416, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Schiff, Maurice & Wang, Yanling, 2004. "On the quantity and quality of knowledge - the impact of openness and foreign research and development on North-North and North-South technology spillovers," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3190, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  10. Michael R. Pakko, 2005. "Changing technology trends, transition dynamics and growth accounting," Working Papers 2000-014, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  11. Eliasson, Gunnar & Johansson, Dan & Taymaz, Erol, 2004. "Simulating the New Economy," Ratio Working Papers 52, The Ratio Institute. [Downloadable!]
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  12. Urban Jermann & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2002. "Stock Market Boom and the Productivity Gains of the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 9034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2002. "Mergers as Reallocation," NBER Working Papers 9279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Chen, Kaiji & Song, Zheng, 2007. "Financial Friction, Capital Reallocation and Expectation-Driven Business Cycles," MPRA Paper 3889, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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