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Measuring Our Ignorance, One Book at a Time: New Indicators of Technological Change, 1909-1949

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Author Info
Michelle Alexopoulos
Jon Cohen

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Abstract

We present new indicators of U.S. technological change for the period 1909-49 based on information in the Library of Congress’ catalogue. We use these indicators to estimate the connections between technological change and economic activity, and to investigate the relationship between fluctuations in innovative activity and the Great Depression. Although we do find links between technological change, output and productivity, our results suggest that the slowdown in technological progress in the early 1930s did not contribute significantly to the Great Depression. On the other hand, the remarkable acceleration in innovations after 1934 did play a role in the recovery.

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File URL: http://repec.economics.utoronto.ca/files/tecipa-349.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Toronto, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number tecipa-349.

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Length: 46 pages
Date of creation: 23 Feb 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-349

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Related research
Keywords: Technical Change; Productivity; the Great Depression;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change
O4 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations

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This page was last updated on 2009-11-21.


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