Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Jacopo Staccioli
Author-X-Name-First: Jacopo
Author-X-Name-Last: Staccioli
Author-Email: jacopo.staccioli@unicatt.it
Author-Workplace-Name: Dipartimento di Politica Economica, DISCE, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa
Author-Name: Maria Enrica Virgillito
Author-X-Name-First: Maria Enrica
Author-X-Name-Last: Virgillito
Author-Email: mariaenrica.virgillito@santannapisa.it
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa – Dipartimento di Politica Economica, DISCE, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Title: Back to the past: the historical roots of labour-saving automation
Abstract: This paper, relying on a still relatively unexplored long-term dataset on U.S. patenting activity, provides empirical evidence on the history of labour-saving innovations back to early 19th century. The identification of mechanisation/automation heuristics, retrieved via textual content analysis on current robotic technologies by Montobbio et al. (2020), allows to focus on a limited set of CPC codes where mechanisation and automation technologies are more prevalent. We track their time evolution, clustering, eventual emergence of wavy behaviour, 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 provide evidence of the emergence of erratic constellations of heterogeneous technological artefacts, in line with the development-block approach enabled by autocatalytic systems.
Length: 33 
Creation-Date: 2020-11
File-URL: http://dipartimenti.unicatt.it/politica-economica-DIPE0012.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-Function: First version, 2020
Number: dipe0012
Classification-JEL: O3, C38, J24
Keywords: Labour-Saving Technologies, Search Heuristics, Industrial Revolutions,
Wavelet analysis
Handle: RePEc:ctc:serie5:dipe0012