The Diffusion of New Technology and the Evolution of Industry Structure: The North American Maritime Industries Since c.1789

本研究计划关注的是新技术的扩散，产业结构的演变和企业生存的实证调查，所有的背景下，北美商船造船和商船业从c.1789到20世纪。该项目的两个主要目的是：（1）在基于特定年份人力资本和基于学习的两种竞争性技术扩散理论之间进行检验，以及（2）研究行业演变的模式和企业生存的决定因素，特别关注在最近的行业调整模型之间进行区分测试。这些测试将使用美国造船厂和加拿大造船厂的新面板数据进行。托运人，并在一个大型数据集的个人工资合同之间达成的海员和他们的雇主在航程离开加拿大大西洋港口。这些数据的时间跨度在80年到120年之间。加拿大的数据最近已提供给研究人员，而美国的数据将从主要来源构建。这些数据对于技术研究具有独特的价值，因为它们确定了企业所采用的精确技术以及员工所使用的精确技术。扩散理论的测试将集中在从模型中产生的有区别的预测上，在这些模型中，人力资本是特定于特定年份的技术，而在这些模型中，个别企业和工人学习并花费资源以转换到，新技术在企业层面上，特定年份的人力资本模型预测技术扩散率与技术使用方差之间存在负相关关系，而学习模型预测技术扩散率与技术使用方差之间存在正相关关系。在个体工人层面，特定年份的人力资本模型预测，与最近的技术年份相匹配的员工的年龄-收入曲线会更陡峭，但所有工人的预期终身收入是相同的。与此相反，学习模型预测，较早掌握新技术的劳动者的预期终身收入更高。最近的产业进化理论主要关注产业生命周期中的一个显著特征--企业退出率在短时间内急剧上升。最近的几项研究从采用新技术的成功率不同的角度解释了这种淘汰，而另一些研究则认为，退出率的变化仅仅是早期进入率变化的结果。在论证技术重要性的研究中，企业规模的作用被不同地对待。研究主要集中在两个方面：第一，在多大程度上采用新技术的问题，为企业的生存？换句话说，公司年龄是公司成长和生存的一个足够的统计数据，还是技术选择很重要？第二，当前规模是否是企业最终成功采用新技术的概率的重要指标？这些问题将解决使用面板的造船厂来衡量公司规模的影响。企业年龄、现有技术对企业成长和生存的影响。

This research program is concerned with empirical investigations of the diffusion of new technology, the evolution of industry structure, and firm survival, all in the context of the North American merchant shipbuilding and merchant shipping industries from c.1789 to the twentieth century. The two main pur-poses of this project are: (1) to test between two competing theories of technological diffusion based on vintage-specific human capital and on learning, and (2) to study patterns of industry evolution and the determinants of firm survival with the particular focus of conducting discriminating tests between recent models of industry shakeouts.These tests will be conducted using new panel data on US shipyards and Canadian shippers, and on a large dataset of individual wage contracts struck between mariners and their employers on voyages leav-ing Canadian Atlantic ports. The data span periods of between 80 and 120 years. The Canadian data were recently made available to researchers, while the US data will be constructed from primary sources. These data are uniquely valuable for the study of technology because they identify the precise technology em-ployed by firms and the precise technology with which employees were working.Tests of theories of diffusion will focus on the discriminating predictions arising from models in which human capital is specific to technology of a given vintage, and those in which individual firms and workers learn about, and expend resources in order to switch to, new technologies. At the firm level, the vintage-specific human capital model predicts a negative correlation between the rate of technological diffusion and the variance of technologies in uses, while the learning model predicts a positive correla-tion. At the individual worker level, the vintage-specific human capital model predicts a steeper age-earnings profile for employees matched with recent vintages of technology, but that expected lifetime earnings for all workers are the same. The learning model, in contrast, predicts higher expected lifetime earnings for workers who master new technologies earlier.Recent theories of industry evolution have focused on the shakeout, a robust feature of the industry life cycle in which firm exit rates rise dramatically in a short period of time. Several recent studies have explained the shakeout in terms of differential success in adopting new technologies, while others have argued that variations in exit rates are simply a result of earlier variations in entry rates. Among studies arguing for the importance of technology, the role of firm scale has been treated differently. The research focuses on two main lines of inquiry: First, to what extent does the adoption of new technology matter for firm survival? Put another way, is firm age a sufficient statistic for firm growth and survival, or does technology choice matter? Second, is current scale an important indicator of the probability that a firm will eventually succeed in adopting new technology? These questions will be addressed using the panel of shipyards to measure the effects of firm size. firm age, and current technology on firm growth and sur-vival.