Replication data for: Education and Catch-Up in the Industrial Revolution

Research increasingly stresses the role of human capital in modern economic development. Existing historical evidence -- mostly from British textile industries -- however, rejects that formal education was important for the Industrial Revolution. Our new evidence from technological follower Prussia uses a unique school enrollment and factory employment database linking 334 counties from pre-industrial 1816 to two industrial phases in 1849 and 1882. Using pre-industrial education as instrument for later education and controlling extensively for pre-industrial development, we find that basic education is significantly associated with nontextile industrialization in both phases of the Industrial Revolution. Panel data models with county fixed effects confirm the results. (JEL I20, J24, N13, N33, N63)

研究日益强调人力资本（human capital）在现代经济发展中的作用。然而，现有历史证据（主要来自英国纺织业）并不认可正规教育对工业革命的重要性。我们从技术追随者普鲁士（Prussia）获取的新证据，使用了一个独特的学校入学率与工厂就业数据库，该数据库将1816年工业化前的334个县与1849年和1882年的两个工业化阶段联系起来。以工业化前的教育作为后期教育的工具变量（instrument），并广泛控制工业化前的发展因素后，我们发现基础教育与工业革命两个阶段的非纺织业工业化显著相关。包含县域固定效应的面板数据模型（panel data models）证实了这一结果。（JEL分类号：I20、J24、N13、N33、N63）