"The Industrial Revolution could shed light on modern productivity" –Ryan Avent
Ryan Avent's latest for the print edition of
The Economist is online now.
❝ HOW much yarn per day could an 18th-century British woman spin? Such questions are catnip for economic historians, whose debates typically unfold unnoticed by anyone outside their field. But a running debate concerning the productivity of pre-industrial spinners, and related questions, is spilling beyond academia. Each probably produced between a quarter of a pound and a pound of yarn a day, the historians have concluded. But at issue is something much more profound: a disagreement regarding the nature of technological progress that has important implications for the world economy. [Economist.com]
| RYAN AVENT is senior editor and economics columnist at The Economist and author of The Wealth of Humans. Watch him talk about his book below, and learn more about booking Bob for your next event today. |
