Growth Takes Off When Smart People Are Neighbors

The Industrial Revolution was probably the most important thing that has ever happened in human history. In the space of a few centuries, much of the human race, which had long hovered on the brink of starvation, was suddenly lifted into relative security through the power of new technology. But why did this amazing explosion happen? There are many theories, and we’ll probably never have a definitive answer.

But there’s a strong argument to be made that communities of smart individuals, exchanging information and ideas, were key. Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Boyle and many other giants of the early scientific revolution are now household names, but they didn’t operate in isolation. They corresponded with each other, wrote letters, read each other’s work. Ideas were in the air. Economists William Maloney and Felipe Caicedo have found evidence that countries with the highest densities of engineers were the ones that contributed most to the Industrial Revolution, and hence were quicker to benefit.