Logo
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

How substitutable are fixed factors in production? evidence from pre-industrial England

Wilde, Joshua (2012): How substitutable are fixed factors in production? evidence from pre-industrial England.

Warning
There is a more recent version of this item available.
[thumbnail of MPRA_paper_39278.pdf]
Preview
PDF
MPRA_paper_39278.pdf

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Whether fixed factors such as land constrain per-capita income growth depends crucially on two variables: the substitutability of fixed factors in production, and the extent to which innovation is biased towards land-saving technologies. This paper attempts to quantify both. Using the timing of plague epidemics as an instrument for labor supply, I estimate the elasticity of substitution between fixed and non-fixed factors in pre-industrial England to be significantly less than one. In addition, I find evidence that denser populations – and hence higher land scarcity – induced innovation towards land-saving technologies.

Available Versions of this Item

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact us: mpra@ub.uni-muenchen.de

This repository has been built using EPrints software.

MPRA is a RePEc service hosted by Logo of the University Library LMU Munich.