I feel like you are arguing against hypotheticals. The actual papers are available[1][2]. The first uses a spatial model, which means there isn't just one "indu

I feel like you are arguing against hypotheticals. The actual papers are available[1][2]. The first uses a spatial model, which means there isn't just one "industrial revolution" but dozens, one per city. > We rationalize these findings using a dynamic spatial model, where slavery investment raises the return to capital accumulation, expanding production in capital-intensive sectors. To establish causality, we use arguably exogenous variation in slave mortality on the passage from Africa to the Indies, driven by weather shocks. The second paper focuses on labor-capital substitution. In this view, there are again many industrialization locations, but also each tech is a micro-revolution. You can even see the proposed causal DAG in Figure 4. > To measure technological change, we collect new, granular data on the diffusion of technologies (both labor-saving and not) in industrializing England. To measure the geographical patterns of labor scarcity, we exploit the massive shock to labor supply that resulted from military recruitment during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815). Neither paper predicts a boolean "revolution", because thats really an academic construct to describe a shift in practices over time with fuzzy boundaries and definitions. Instead they go after capital formation or adoption of labor saving devices, which seem like reasonable proxies. [1]: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30451/w30451.pdf [2]: https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_900972_smxx.pdf