Technology-Skill Complementarity in Early Phases of Industrialization
Working Paper 23197
DOI 10.3386/w23197
Issue Date
The research explores the effect of industrialization on human capital formation. Exploiting exogenous regional variations in the adoption of steam engines across France, the study establishes that, in contrast to conventional wisdom that views early industrialization as a predominantly deskilling process, the industrial revolution was conducive for human capital formation, generating wide-ranging gains in literacy rates and educational attainment.