Evidence of Qualitative Learning‐by‐Doing from the Advent of the ‘Talkie’
利用1925-1941年美国电影业数据，发现向有声电影转型并未带来质量的固定提升，而是随着制片厂有声经验积累而提高，为定性干中学提供了经验证据。
Empirical work on learning‐by‐doing has largely been limited to examinations of production costs. In this paper I present anecdotal and statistical evidence of qualitative learning (the idea that product quality improves as producers gain experience with the relevant technology). Using U.S. motion picture industry data from 1925 to 1941, I reject that the transition to sound pictures resulted in a fixed increase in film‐quality in favor of my hypothesis that this quality differential increased with the producing studio’s sound‐experience. These results are robust to several different specifications.