Special report: Manufacturing and innovation In this special report A third industrial revolution Back to making stuff The boomerang effect Forging ahead Solid print Layer by layer All together now Making the future Sources & acknowledgementsReprints A third industrial revolution As manufacturing goes digital, it will change out of all recognition, says Paul Markillie. And some of the business ...

The sharing economy will blur the distinctions between renting and owning a wide variety of durable products. The first great entrepreneurial (Neolithic) revolution transformed hunter-gatherers into fixed agriculturalists. The second (Industrial) revolution dramatically reduced the costs of owning products. The third (Transactions Costs) revolution will reduce the costs of exchange, fostering a...

The widespread view that English Industrial Revolution was driven by labour substituting technical progress caused by high wages suffers from a basic defect: although English wages were high, so too was English productivity. We argue instead that England’s high wages and Industrial Revolution stemmed from a common source: the superior human capability of ordinary English workers, who were talle...

Societies before the Industrial Revolution were dependent on the annual cycle of plant photosynthesis for both heat and mechanical energy. The quantity of energy available each year was therefore limited, and economic growth was necessarily constrained. In the Industrial Revolution, energy usage increased massively and output rose accordingly. The energy source continued to be plant photosynthe...

[1] Ice core measurements (H2O2 and CH4/HCHO) and modeling studies indicate a change in the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere since the onset of the Industrial Revolution due to increases in fossil fuel burning emissions [e.g., Lelieveld et al., 2002; Hauglustaine and Brasseur, 2001; Wang and Jacob, 1998; Staffelbach et al., 1991]. The mass-independent fractionation (MIF) in the oxygen isoto...

The Industrial Revolution seemingly involved two profound changes separated by 120 years: the classic Industrial Revolution of 1770, and the demographic transition of 1890. The first was the appearance of higher innovation rates, creating modern rates of output growth. The second a decline in fertility, first in the upper classes, then among the masses, that channeled all economic growth into h...

Theories of economic growth hypothesize that the transition from pre-industrial stagnation to sustained growth is associated with a post-Malthusian phase in which technological progress raises income and spurs population growth while offsetting diminishing returns to labor. Evidence suggests that England was characterized by post-Malthusian dynamics preceding the Industrial Revolution. However,...