Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Can learning by doing be held to have played a significant part in raising productive efficiency during the early growth of manufacturing industries in the United States? If there is indeed an adequate basis for regarding technical progress during the pre-Civil War period as an endogenous process depending crucially upon the accumulation of practical experience, what sorts of ‘learning functions” best describe the forms in which that process manifested itself? And, in evaluating the impact of national commercial policies—be they historical or contemporary—what implications flow from the existence and the characteristics of learning effects in young industries, and possibly also in not-so-young industries?