Jeremy Greenwood
Bio
Welcome!
A mill
steam engine. Photo: Chris Allen
I am a
macroeconomist, although boundaries across specialties in Economics are somewhat
blurred. My research has focused on how technological progress has affected, in
a variety of ways, the economy. Some time ago, I analyzed how technological
advance in the capital goods sector has been an engine of growth for the
economy by making investment less expensive. Technological revolutions have
tended to be associated with rapid drops in the cost of adopting new
technologies, productivity slowdowns, and rises in income inequality. This is
true for the First Industrial Revolution, the Second Industrial Revolution, and
the Information Age. I have modeled this phenomenon. Other work examined the
effect that skilled-biased technology advance, which favors skilled relative to
unskilled labor, has had on income inequality and de-unionization. I have
estimated the worth of a personal computer for the average American. The advent
of digital advertising has brought benefits to consumers, such has free media
goods--Facebook, Google, Pandora, Twitter/X, etc. It has also encouraged firms
to develop more specialized varieties of goods that are better catered to
consumers' tastes, since firms can now reach potential customers more easily.
The benefits of digital advertising for the consumer have been calculated in my
research. ↓
An old washing machine used by the
Amish. Source: Amish America
The Second Industrial Revolution
introduced electricity and labor-saving household appliances into the home. It
is hard to overstate how cell phones, dyers, electric irons, frozen foods,
microwave ovens, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, etc., have changed our lives. I
have investigated how improvements in household technologies have liberated
married women from working at home and allowed them to enter the labor market.
Another hypothesis from this research is that technological progress in the
home has led to a fall in marriage and an increase in assortative mating. ↓
'Prorace' cervical cap, England, 1915-1925. Source:
sciencemuseum.org
Other work has focused on social change as
a result of improvements in contraception. It has examined how technological
advance in contraception has led to a rise in the age of marriage, premarital
sex, and the fraction of births that are out of wedlock. My research has also
spotlighted the formation and evolution of attitudes toward premarital sex. ↓
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landing. Source:
Flickr
Some of my
research has investigated the consequences of technological progress in
financial markets, which allows investment to be directed toward the most
profitable production opportunities in the economy, thereby increasing income
and productivity. Recently I have explored how efficiency in both financial and
patent markets affect technology adoption and growth. For example, how does the
efficiency of financial markets affect funding for the development of advanced
technologies? Path-breaking technologies may be expensive to develop and
involve long and risky gestation lags. These factors make bank financing
unsuitable for startups developing path-breaking technologies. Does the rise of
venture capital spur the development of new technologies by startups? Inventors
often create ideas that they themselves cannot commericalize. Firms may hatch
ideas that are far outside of their core lines of business and hence are hard to
take to market. Are firms and inventors more likely to develop new ideas when
they can patent
and sell them? ↓
Wright Brothers’ 1906 Patent. Source:
Wikipedia
Currently I teach at the University of Pennsylvania. I am also a Fellow
of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER), and a Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of
Economic Theory. ↓