TY  - JOUR
AU  - O'Rourke,Kevin H.
AU  - Rahman,Ahmed S.
AU  - Taylor,Alan M.
TI  - Luddites and the Demographic Transition
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14484
PY  - 2008
Y2  - November 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14484
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14484.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kevin H. O'Rourke
All Souls College
Oxford University
Oxford OX1 4AL, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)1865 279 348
Fax: 353-1-6772503
E-Mail: kevin.orourke@all-souls.ox.ac.uk

Ahmed Rahman
Department of Economics
United States Naval Academy
589 McNair Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
E-Mail: rahman@usna.edu

Alan M. Taylor
Department of Economics
University of Virginia
Monroe Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Fax: (434) 982-2904
E-Mail: alan.m.taylor@virginia.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -