Abstract
This paper analyzes the effects of technological change on skill acquisition during the British Industrial Revolution. Based on a unique set of data on apprenticeships between 1710 and 1772, we show that both the number of apprentices and their share in the cohort of the fifteen year-olds increased in response to inventions. The strongest response was in the highly skilled mechanical trades. These results suggest that technological change in this period was skill biased due to the expansion of the machinery sector they induced.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 94-113 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Explorations in Economic History |
| Volume | 59 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Jan 2016 |
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
-
SDG 4 Quality Education -
SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
Keywords
- Apprenticeship
- Eighteenth-century England
- Human capital
- Industrial revolution
- Machine making
- Mechanical trades
- Skill-biased technological change
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- History
- Economics and Econometrics
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