The contributions of innovations, factor endowments and institutions to American industrialization are examined through analysing the rise of the American portland cement industry. Minerals abundance contributed in multiple ways to the spectacular rise of the industry from the 1890s. However,...

Unobserved plant level heterogeneity and discrete production processes can produce problems for estimation. A structural model of discrete production decisions by heterogeneous plants is constructed and, as a case study, estimated for the U.S. Portland cement industry. A new estimator is...