Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact of the Printing Press

The estimates suggest early adoption of the printing press was associated with a population growth advantage of 21 percentage points 1500–1600, when mean city growth was 30 percentage points. The difference-in-differences model shows that cities that adopted the printing press in the late 1400s had no prior growth advantage, but grew at least 35 percentage points more than similar non-adopting cities from 1500 to 1600.

Exploiting distance from Mainz as an instrument for adoption, I find large and significant estimates of the relationship between the adoption of the printing press and city growth. I find a 60 percentage point growth advantage between 1500–1600.

The computer equipment manufacturing industry comprised only 0.3 percent of U.S. value added from 1960–2007, but generated 2.7 percent of economic growth and 25 percent of productivity growth.