Should the Personal Computer Be Considered a Technological Revolution? Evidence from U.S. Metropolitan Areas
利用美国大都市区面板数据，检验个人电脑普及、教育程度与技能回报之间的关系是否符合技术革命模型，发现1980-2000年间数据支持模型预测。
The introduction and diffusion of personal computers are widely viewed as a technological revolution. Using U.S. metropolitan area-level panel data, this paper asks whether links between PC adoption, educational attainment, and the return to skill conform to a model of technological revolutions in which the speed and extent of adoption are endogenous. The model implies that cities will adjust differently to the arrival of a more skill-intensive means of production, with the returns to skill increasing most where skill is abundant and its return is low. We show that the cross-city data fit many of the predictions of the model during the period 1980-2000, the PC diffusion era.