Back to the past: the historical roots of labor-saving automation
Abstrak
This paper, relying on a still relatively unexplored long-term dataset on U.S. patenting activity, provides empirical evidence on the history of labor-saving innovations back to early nineteenth century. The identification of mechanization/automation heuristics, retrieved via textual content analysis on current robotic technologies by Montobbio et al. (Robots and the origin of their labour-saving impact, LEM Working Paper Series 2020/03), allows to focus on a limited set of CPC codes where mechanization and automation technologies are more prevalent. We track their time evolution, clustering, eventual emergence of wavy behavior, and their comovements with long-term GDP growth. Our results challenge both the general-purpose technology approach and the strict 50-year Kondratiev cycle, while they provide evidence of the emergence of erratic constellations of heterogeneous technological artefacts, in line with the development-block approach enabled by autocatalytic systems.
Topik & Kata Kunci
Penulis (2)
Jacopo Staccioli
M. Virgillito
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2021
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 56×
- Sumber Database
- Semantic Scholar
- DOI
- 10.1007/s40821-020-00179-1
- Akses
- Open Access ✓