NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development are happy to invite you to our joint meeting of the Research Seminar on Diversity and Development and HSE Seminar on Political Economy.
Raphaël Franck (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) will present the paper “Labor Scarcity, Technology Adoption and Innovation: Evidence from the Cholera Pandemics in 19th Century France”.
Registration: till noon of March 2, link to video-conference will be sent up to 5 p.m.
Abstract:
To analyze the effect of labor scarcity on technology adoption and innovation, this study uses the differential spread of cholera across France in 1832, 1849 and 1854, before the transmission mode of this disease was understood. The results suggest that a larger share of cholera deaths in the population, which can be causally linked to summer temperature levels, had a positive and significant effect on technology adoption and innovation in agriculture in the mid-run but a negative and significant impact on technology adoption in industry in the short-run. These results, which are not driven by migration, urbanization, religiosity or local financial intermediation, can be explained by the positive effect of labor scarcity on human capital formation.