IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v71y2011i03p704-729_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Capital and Technological Transition: Insights from the U.S. Navy

Author

Listed:
  • J. Glaser, Darrell
  • S. Rahman, Ahmed

Abstract

We explore the effects of human capital on workers during the latter nineteenth century by examining the U.S. Navy. Naval officers belonged either to a regular or an engineer corps and had tasks assigned for their specialized training. We compile education and career data for officers from Naval Academy and navy registers for the years 1858 to 1907. Wage premia for “engineer-skilled†officers deteriorated over their careers; more traditionally skilled officers enjoyed higher gains in earnings and more frequent promotions. This compelled those with engineering skills to leave the service early, hindering the navy's capacity to further technologically develop.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Glaser, Darrell & S. Rahman, Ahmed, 2011. "Human Capital and Technological Transition: Insights from the U.S. Navy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 704-729, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:71:y:2011:i:03:p:704-729_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050711001896/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Dan Bernhardt, 1995. "Strategic Promotion and Compensation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(2), pages 315-339.
    3. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    4. Susanto Basu & David N. Weil, 1998. "Appropriate Technology and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1025-1054.
    5. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    6. Oded Galor & David N. Weil, 1998. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition," Working Papers 98-3, Brown University, Department of Economics, revised 19 Aug 1998.
    7. Oded Galor & Andrew Mountford, 2004. "Trading Population for Productivity," GE, Growth, Math methods 0410001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 693-732.
    9. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2000. "Ability-Biased Technological Transition, Wage Inequality, and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 469-497.
    10. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    11. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 1999. "A Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics Inside Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1321-1358.
    12. Dirk Krueger & Krishna B. Kumar, 2004. "Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US--Europe Growth Differences?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 167-207, June.
    13. Aldrich, Terry Mark, 1970. "Rates of Return Earned on Investment in Formal Technical Education in the Ante-Bellum American Economy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 251-255, March.
    14. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    15. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 2007. "Education and Consumption: The Effects of Education in the Household Compared to the Marketplace," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 9-35.
    16. Goldin, Claudia & Katz, Lawrence F., 2000. "Education and Income in the Early Twentieth Century: Evidence from the Prairies," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 782-818, September.
    17. Kevin H. O'Rourke, Ahmed S. Rahman and Alan M. Taylor, 2008. "Luddites and the Demographic Transition," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp266, IIIS.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Darrell J. Glaser & Ahmed S. Rahman, 2012. "Technical Human Capital and Job Mobility in an Era of Rapid Technological Innovation," Departmental Working Papers 37, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    2. Darrell J. Glaser & Ahmed S. Rahman, 2017. "Development and Retention of Human Capital in Large Bureaucracies," Departmental Working Papers 60, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    3. Glaser, Darrell & Rahman, Ahmed, 2015. "Human Capital on the High Seas - Job Mobility and Returns to Technical Skill During Industrialization," MPRA Paper 68351, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Glaser, Darrell J. & Rahman, Ahmed S., 2021. "Between the Dockyard and the Deep Blue Sea: Retention and Personnel Economics in the Royal Navy," IZA Discussion Papers 14037, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Ahmed S. Rahman, 2020. "Officer retention and military spending: the rise of the military‐industrial complex during the Second World War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1074-1096, November.
    6. Glaser, Darrell J. & Rahman, Ahmed S., 2023. "Between the dockyard and the deep blue sea—Retention and personnel economics in the Royal Navy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. Hoffman, Ryan & Kambhampati, Ashwin & Kaplan, Scott, 2023. "Pay equality among heterogeneous agents," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    8. Darrell J. Glaser & Ahmed S. Rahman, 2012. "Naval Engineering and Labor Specialization during the Industrial Revolution," Departmental Working Papers 38, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Darrell J. Glaser & Ahmed S. Rahman, 2010. "The Value of Human Capital during the Second Industrial Revolution—Evidence from the U.S. Navy," Departmental Working Papers 28, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    2. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Ahmed S. Rahman & Alan M. Taylor, 2007. "Trade, Knowledge and the Industrial Revolution," Development Working Papers 230, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    3. Oded Galor, 2010. "The 2008 Lawrence R. Klein Lecture-Comparative Economic Development: Insights From Unified Growth Theory," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(1), pages 1-44, February.
    4. Oded, Galor, 2011. "Inequality, Human Capital Formation, and the Process of Development," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 441-493, Elsevier.
    5. Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, September.
    6. Jakob Madsen & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Testing unified growth theory: Technological progress and the child quantity‐quality tradeoff," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 235-275, January.
    7. Oded Galor & Omer Moav & Dietrich Vollrath, 2009. "Inequality in Landownership, the Emergence of Human-Capital Promoting Institutions, and the Great Divergence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 143-179.
    8. Christian Belzil & Michael Bognanno, 2010. "The promotion dynamics of American executives," Research in Labor Economics, in: Jobs, Training, and Worker Well-being, pages 189-231, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2004. "Performance, seniority, and wages: formal salary systems and individual earnings profiles," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 741-763, December.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Oded Galor & Andrew Mountford, 2006. "Trade and the Great Divergence: The Family Connection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 299-303, May.
    12. Ahmed S. Rahman, 2010. "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Industrialization," Departmental Working Papers 27, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    13. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    14. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2011. "Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2003-2041, August.
    15. Galor, Oded, 2006. "Economic Growth in the Very Long Run," MPRA Paper 76648, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Oded Galor & Andrew Mountford, 2004. "Trading Population for Productivity," GE, Growth, Math methods 0410001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Jin, Xin, 2014. "Flattening Firms and Wage Distribution," MPRA Paper 58485, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Jed DeVaro & Suman Ghosh & Cindy Zoghi, 2018. "Job Characteristics and Labor Market Discrimination in Promotions," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 389-434, July.
    19. Galor, Oded, 2000. "Income distribution and the process of development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 706-712, May.
    20. Galor, Oded & Ashraf, Quamrul, 2008. "Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 7057, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Holger Strulik, 2014. "Knowledge And Growth In The Very Long Run," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 459-482, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:71:y:2011:i:03:p:704-729_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.