Jeanne Lafortune es Profesora Asociada y Directora de Investigación del Departamento de Economía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Tiene un PhD en Economía por el Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) y ha sido discípula de los ganadores del Premio Nobel de Economía Josh Angrist (2021), Abhijit Banerje (2019) y Esther Duflo (2019). Sus investigaciones se centran en temas de Economía de la Familia, Economía del Desarrollo e Historia Económica y sus trabajos han sido publicados en revistas académicas como AEJ: Applied Economics, AEJ: Microeconomics, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, Review of Economics and Statistics, entre otras.

Abstract: We use a rich data set at the city-industry level from 1890 to 1940 to identify the impact of electricity on manufacturing industries. We exploit cross-industry variation in energy use intensity before the arrival of electricity combined with geographic variation in proximity to early hydroelectric power plants. Contrary to the existing narrative, we find that labor productivity gains from electricity measured through this strategy were relatively rapid and long-lasting. Cheaper energy thanks to hydroelectricity is partially responsible but firms also appear to have changed their production process relatively quickly.  The source of the impact of electricity on productivity varies with the degree of product market structure: in sector-county pairs where the average firm was initially large, productivity increased without significant expansion in employment, while in markets with relatively small firms, both output and employment increased.

Autores: Martin Fiszbein (Boston University), Jeanne Lafortune (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Ethan Lewis (Dartmouth College) y José Tessada (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

Organizó: Departamento de Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Revista Económica

Contacto: iie@econo.unlp.edu.ar