Toward an Understanding of Learning by Doing: Evidence from an Automobile Assembly Plant
利用一家大型汽车制造商装配厂的详细数据，研究干中学过程中知识的获取、积累、传递和体现，发现大部分知识并未被工人保留，而是由工厂的制度化系统支撑。
We use highly detailed data from an assembly plant of a major auto producer to investigate the learning by doing process. We focus on the acquisition, aggregation, transmission, and embodiment of the knowledge stock built through learning. We find that most of the substantial learning by doing knowledge at the plant was not retained by the plant’s workers, even though they were an important conduit for knowledge acquisition. This finding is consistent with the plant’s institutionalized systems for productivity measurement and improvement. We further explore how overall learning is undergirded by what happens at the hundreds of individual processes along the production line, revealing aspects of the learning process in a complex production system rarely observed by researchers. These results shed light not only on how productivity gains accrue at the plant level, but also how firms might apply managerial inputs to expand production optimally. They also provide some empirical content suggesting how comparative advantage arises and what leads to specialization. ∗ We received generous help from numerous individuals at the auto manufacturer from which our data are obtained, but we would especially like to thank Rich D., Shannon A., and Robert M. In particular, Marco O. was an invaluable