Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning around 1904 but technological innovations often take a long time to travel to less developed regions of the world. FT.
Technology Transfer and Development Economics
Technology Transfer and Development Economics
14 Jul 2025 1 Comment
in development economics, health economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: technology diffusion
Andolfatto and McDonald (1996) on the cycle is the trend
02 Jan 2020 Leave a comment
in business cycles, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, economics of education, entrepreneurship, human capital, industrial organisation, macroeconomics, monetary economics, survivor principle, unemployment Tags: creative destruction, real business cycles, technology diffusion
Nancy Stokey’s Plenary at SED 2018 on technology diffusion
08 Jan 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, technology diffusion
The spread of washing machines in China
18 Jul 2018 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth miracles Tags: engines of liberation, technology diffusion
Trickle down effect is instant?
24 May 2018 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction, technology diffusion
Moving on up is a smart phone, dishwasher & dryer @swinshi @Mark_J_Perry
19 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
Capitalism was the engine of liberation from domestic drudgery
12 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, labour supply Tags: creative destruction, engines of liberation, household production, housework, technology diffusion, The Great Enrichment
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The tractors are coming, the tractors are coming for all the horses
16 Feb 2017 Leave a comment
in economic history, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply Tags: agricultural economics, creative destruction, technological unemployment, technology diffusion
Many new technologies display long adoption lags, and this is often interpeted as evidence of frictions inconsistent with the standard neoclassical model. We study the diffusion of the tractor in American agriculture between 1910 and 1960 — a well known case of slow diffusion — and show that the speed of adoption was consistent with the predictions of a simple neoclassical growth model.
The reason for the slow rate of diffusion was that tractor quality kept improving over this period and, more importantly, that only when wages increased did it become relatively unprofitable to operate the alternative, labor-intensive, horse technology
Source: Frictionless Technology Diffusion: The Case of Tractors By RODOLFO E. MANUELLI AND ANANTH SESHADRI
Diffusion of consumer durables to poor American households since 1984
13 Dec 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, politics - USA Tags: child poverty, creative destruction, family poverty, technology diffusion, The Great Enrichment
We do not have air-conditioning. Do not know many people who do but New Zealand does have a temperate climate. But if you are down and out in America you still have air-conditioning.
Sources: The Economic Condition of Poor Americans (and the rest of us) Continues to Improve – Coordination Problem and Well-Being – Extended Measures of Well-being: Living Conditions in the United States, 2011 – People and Households – U.S. Census Bureau.
In the 2000s, dishwashers, air conditioning and microwaves were still diffusing rapidly in poor households in addition to the usual digital goods.
To make it even worse, despite the ravages of the 1996 US federal welfare reforms and a top 1% who apparently kept for themselves 90% of all income gains since the 1970s, air-conditioning in poor houses increased by 50% or so between 1994 and 2004.
Imagine how many more poor households would have dishwashers, air-conditioning, microwaves and digital goods but for the top 1%. Not that many actually because most of them already have those consumer durables despite their income not increasing for several decades.
I always puzzle over these who claim that incomes of ordinary families have not increased since the 1970s because that implies you can only buy the same basket of goods and same quality of goods as in the 1970s. That is what no real income growth means. You cannot buy more than before.
The ‘hollowing’ of the American middle class
04 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: child poverty, family poverty, technology diffusion, The Great Enrichment
The present rate of technology adoption is nearly a vertical line —@blackrock https://t.co/3oS3YAI4ld—
Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) January 22, 2016
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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