IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v58y2023i5p1973-2023_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Access to Finance and Technological Innovation: Evidence from Pre-Civil War America

Author

Listed:
  • Mao, Yifei
  • Wang, Jessie Jiaxu

Abstract

This article provides new evidence on how access to finance affects technological innovation and establishes the role of labor practices in shaping this relation. We exploit a unique setting, pre-Civil War America, where staggered adoption of free banking laws across states encouraged bank entry, and variation in the use of exploited workers in agriculture generated differences in producers’ demands for labor-saving technologies. Results show that access to finance spurred innovation; the positive effect on agricultural innovation diminished with labor exploitation. We establish the causal role of labor exploitation using the 1850s cholera pandemic and the influx of Irish immigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Mao, Yifei & Wang, Jessie Jiaxu, 2023. "Access to Finance and Technological Innovation: Evidence from Pre-Civil War America," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(5), pages 1973-2023, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:58:y:2023:i:5:p:1973-2023_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109022000795/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:jfinqa:v:58:y:2023:i:5:p:1973-2023_5. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/jfq .

    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.