"Across a broad range of case studies at various levels of (dis)aggregation, we find that ideas — and in particular the exponential growth they imply — are getting harder and harder to find."

After several centuries without measurable productivity growth, real wages seem to have started to grow circa 1640, 150 years before the Industrial Revolution. It's not clear why this happened. The nature of the phenomenon is also debated.

The deployment of electricity in manufacturing, and the greater efficiency it enabled, took decades to realize, as factories and processes had to be reorganized.

"Large differences in output per worker between rich and poor countries have been attributed, in no small part, to differences in Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The natural question then is: what are the underlying causes of these large TFP differences? [...] A recent paper by Restuccia and Rogerson (2008) takes a different approach. Instead of focusing on the efficiency of a representative firm, they suggest that misallocation of resources across firms can have important effects on aggregate TFP. Our goal in this paper is to provide quantitative evidence on the potential impact of resource misallocation on aggregate TFP. [...] We find that moving to “U.S. efficiency” would increase TFP by 30-50% in China and 40-60% in India."

"Using the unique dataset from Ravelry—the Facebook of knitters—I study why and how some knitters become designers. I show that knitters who make the entrepreneurial transition are distinctive in that they have experience in fewer techniques and more product categories. I also show that this transition is facilitated by participation in offline social networks where knitters garner feedback and encouragement."

"Why are people in the richest countries of the world so much richer today than 100 years ago? And why are some countries so much richer than others? Questions such as these define the field of economic growth. This paper documents the facts that underlie these questions."

Problem: endogenous growth theories just don't match the observed data.

"An ample literature has highlighted the importance of human capital for economic development in the modern world. However, its role during the Industrial Revolution is typically found to be minor. [...] We show that distinguishing between average worker skills and upper tail knowledge is crucial, reinstating the role of human capital for industrialization."

HHMI-funded investigators "produce high impact papers at a much higher rate than a control group of similarly-accomplished NIH-funded scientists" and "the direction of their research changes in ways that suggest the program induces them to explore novel lines of inquiry".

"The paper charts the emergence and spread of an improving mentality, tracing its transmission from person to person and across the country. The mentality was not a technique, skill, or special understanding, but a frame of mind: innovators saw room for improvement where others saw none. [...] By creating new institutions and adopting social norms conducive to openness and active sharing, innovators ensured the continued dissemination of innovation, giving rise to modern economic growth in Britain and abroad."