The early history of industrialization in the United States—famously known as “The American System of Manufactures”—exhibited four key features: the substitution of specialized intermediate inputs for skilled work in assembling final goods, the freedom with which knowledge has long been shared in the United States, a learning technology that leverages existing mechanical know-how in human capital accumulation, and increasing returns to intermediate inputs in processing final goods. Our endogenous growth model embodies these components and utilizes historical time series data on labor force “operatives” and the Census of Manufactures to calibrate the model’s parameters. Our simulation closely matches the 1.88% average per capita product growth in the United States from 1860 to date. The simulation predicts that growth will peak in 1980 and ultimately converge to 1.31%—a growth slowdown rooted from the beginning in the economization of skilled labor inherent in the American System. By 2000, simulated per capita product is 2.21 times larger than a counterfactual in which the American System of manufactures never existed.

美国工业化的早期历史——著名的“美国制造系统”——表现出四个关键特征：在组装最终产品时用专业的中间投入代替熟练的工作，知识长期以来被分享的自由美国是一种学习技术，利用现有的机械技术积累人力资本，并增加加工最终产品的中间投入的回报。我们的内生增长模型体现了这些组成部分，并利用劳动力“操作员”的历史时间序列数据和制造业普查来校准模型的参数。我们的模拟与 1860 年至今美国 1.88% 的人均产品平均增长率非常吻合。模拟预测增长将在 1980 年达到顶峰并最终收敛到 1.31%——增长放缓从一开始就源于美国体系固有的熟练劳动力的节约。到 2000 年，模拟的人均产品比美国制造体系从未存在的反事实大 2.21 倍。