From Walker Hanlon:
This study provides causal evidence that a shock to the relative supply of inputs to production can (1) affect the direction of technological progress and (2) lead to a rebound in the relative price of the input that became relatively more abundant (the strong induced-bias hypothesis). I exploit the impact of the U.S. Civil War on the British cotton textile industry, which reduced sup- plies of cotton from the Southern U.S., forcing British producers to shift to lower-quality Indian cotton. Using detailed new data, I show that this shift induced the development of new technologies that augmented Indian cotton. As these new technologies became available, I show that the relative price of Indian/U.S. cotton rebounded to its pre-war level, despite the increased rela- tive supply of Indian cotton. This is the first paper to establish both of these patterns empirically, lending support to the two key predictions…
View original post 7 more words
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments