Collaborative Research: Engineering Human Capital in Technology Adoption and Discovery: Impact on Japans Industrialization

人力资本是发现创新和采用技术的关键因素，但哪种类型的人力资本对这些活动最重要，特别是高阶技术技能的作用，在很大程度上仍未得到探索。19世纪70年代末，日本从零开始建立了工程教育体系，开始了向现代化的转型。考虑到其经济和社会需求，中国一直在寻找一种方法，将新培养的工程干部分配到合适的地方，同时也面临着一些实际的限制。本项目将对19世纪末20世纪初日本工程人力资本的形成过程以及人力资本的配置机制进行深入的理论和实证研究。该团队将根据校友年鉴建立并使用一个详细的数据库，以跟踪获得学位的日本工程师的整个职业生涯。在此过程中，他们将确定工作网络及其影响，并将其与公司、行业和地区的绩效联系起来。该项目还将调查受过教育的工程师如何通过将构建的数据库与日本专利局数据中的发明人姓名相匹配，为社会有益的发现做出贡献。技术采用的障碍是经济发展的主要障碍，但我们对关键角色——工程师所扮演的角色仍然缺乏系统的了解。这个项目考察了培养受过良好教育的工程劳动力的过程和效果。对潜在过程和机制的深入研究将为当代理论、政策和管理话语提供信息，包括为美国决策者提供宝贵的经验教训。它还将对全球消除贫困和经济停滞的斗争产生影响。该项目将探讨与技术发现和采用有关的各种问题，以及公司和区域竞争力，重点是受过教育的工程师所体现的高端技术技能的可用性和分配。这将对工业和社会发展的来源形成更丰富的图景。它还将突出网络效应的重要性和竞争性市场配置机制的作用。该项目通过开发和部署日本独特的校友名单和其他档案资源进行定量分析，将为理解与技术采用、增长和发展相关的关键问题做出重要贡献。研究技术机会、人力资本形成、市场需求和制度规则之间的相互作用，是更好地理解国家如何既利用现有先进技术又开发新技术的一种有希望的方式。在19世纪末至20世纪初的日本（西欧及其北美和澳大利亚分支之外建立起来的第一个现代工业经济体）的背景下，阐明工程人力资本的作用，不仅在智力上是新颖的，而且还将为当今发展中国家促进技术采用和科学发现的辩论提供信息。该项目还将向公众提供一个关于工程师、他们的雇主和网络的长达数十年的综合数据集。该小组将通过在研讨会和会议上的演讲以及学术出版物广泛传播研究结果。该项目还将帮助培养研究生成为研究助理和学术论文的共同作者，并将通过共同工作加强与日本大学和个别学者的合作。该数据库将开放，以便其他人可以使用它来检验和建立额外的理论和见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Human capital is a critical ingredient in the discovery of innovations and adoption of technology, but what type of human capital is most important for such activities, and what are the roles of higher-order technical skills in particular, remain largely unexplored. Japan started its transition to modernity in the late 1870s by building an engineering education system from scratch. It searched for a way to allocate newly minted engineering cadres to the right places given its economic and societal needs, all while facing several practical constraints. This project will conduct an in-depth theoretical and empirical investigation of the process of formation of engineering human capital in late 19th century and early 20th century Japan, and the mechanisms that allocated that human capital. The team will construct and employ a detailed database based on alumni yearbooks to follow the census of degreed Japanese engineers through their careers. In so doing, they will identify work networks and their effects, linking these to the performance of firms, industries, and regions. The project will also investigate how educated engineers contributed to socially beneficial discovery by matching the constructed database to inventors’ names in Japan Patent Office data. Barriers to technology adoption represent a main obstacle to economic development, but we still have little systematic knowledge of the roles performed by the key actor, the engineer. This project examines the process and effects of developing an educated engineering workforce. In-depth examination of the underlying processes and mechanisms will inform contemporary theoretical, policy, and managerial discourse, including valuable lessons for U.S. policymakers. It will also have implications for the global fight against poverty and economic stagnation. This project will explore various issues related to technology discovery and adoption, as well as firm and regional competitiveness, by focusing on the availability and allocation of higher-end technical skills embodied in educated engineers. This will form a richer picture of the sources of industrial and social development. It will also highlight the importance of network effects and the role played by competitive market allocative mechanism. This project, by developing and deploying for quantitative analyses a unique trove of alumni lists and other archival sources in Japan, will make an important contribution to understanding key issues tied to technology adoption, growth, and development. Studying the interactions among technological opportunity, human capital formation, market demand, and institutional rules is a promising way to better understand how nations can both take advantage of existing advanced technologies and develop new ones. Elucidating engineering human capital’s role in the context of late 19th-early 20th century Japan (the first modern industrial economy to establish itself outside of Western Europe and its North American and Australian offshoots) will not just be novel intellectually but will also inform debates about promoting technology adoption and scientific discovery in today’s developing countries. The project will also make publicly available a comprehensive decades-long dataset on engineers, their employers, and networks. The team will broadly disseminate findings through presentations in seminars and conferences as well as through academic publications. The project will also help train graduate students as research assistants and as coauthors on academic papers and will enhance collaboration with Japanese universities and individual scholars through joint work. The database will be made available so others can use it to examine and build additional theories and insights.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.