Iron and steel production grew dramatically in the U.S. when mass production technologies for steel were adopted in the 1860s. According to new measures presented in this study, earnings inequality rose within the iron and steel industries about 1870, perhaps because technological uncertainty...

Workers who use computers earn more than those who do not. Is this a productivity effect or merely selection? Using the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey, we control for selection and find a wage premium of 3.8% for the average worker upon adopting a computer. This premium, however,...

The process of developing technology through open discussion has been called collective invention. Open source software projects have this form. This paper documents two earlier episodes of collective invention and proposes a general model based on search theory. One episode was the development...