Industrialization

The basic education of the population had important consequences already during the industrialization. Using our digitized Prussian regional data of the 19th century, we find that basic education is significantly associated with non-textile industrialization in both phases of the Industrial Revolution. Our results suggest that the degree of industrialization would have been lower by one third had all Prussian counties only achieved the education level of the least educated county.

The Industrial Revolution was arguably the biggest transformation of the economy and has received a lot of attention among economic historians. While education is considered a key driver of economic development in modern days, scholars studying the Industrial Revolution in the technological leader country Britain have generally found formal education to be of no importance. By contrast, our results suggest that the education level of the population did in fact play an important role during the first and second phases of the Industrial Revolution in the follower country Prussia.

Non-technical contributions:

Education and Socio-Economic Development during the Industrialization (with S.O. Becker). In: C. Diebolt, M. Haupert (eds.), Handbook of Cliometrics, 2nd ed., Berlin: Springer, 2019

Being the Educational World Leader Helped Prussia Catch up in the Industrial Revolution (with S.O. Becker and E. Hornung). VOX, 9.5.2010

How Luther’s Quest for Education Changed German Economic History: 9+5 Theses on the Effects of the Protestant Reformation (with S.O. Becker). In: J.-P. Carvalho, S. Iyer, J. Rubin (eds.), Advances in the Economics of Religion, International Economic Association Series, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 215-227, 2019

Here you can learn more about my research on this topic.

My most important academic paper on the topic is:

Education and Catch-up in the Industrial Revolution (with S.O. Becker and E. Hornung). American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3 (3): 92-126, 2011

Additional material is available in German.