@techreport{NBERw14484,
 title = "Luddites and the Demographic Transition",
 author = "Kevin H. O'Rourke and Ahmed S. Rahman and Alan M. Taylor",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "14484",
 year = "2008",
 month = "November",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w14484",
 abstract = {Technological change was unskilled-labor-biased during the early Industrial Revolution, but is skill-biased today. This is not embedded in extant unified growth models. We develop a model which can endogenously account for these facts, where factor bias reflects profit-maximizing decisions by innovators. Endowments dictate that the early Industrial Revolution be unskilled-labor-biased. Increasing basic knowledge causes a growth takeoff, an income-led demand for fewer educated children, and the transition to skill-biased technological change. The simulated model tracks British industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries and generates a demographic transition without relying on either rising skill premia or exogenous educational supply shocks.},
}