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Data

Technology and infrastructure diffusion in the United Kingdom

About this data

Source
Comin and Hobijn (2004) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 16, 2023
Date range
1788–2001

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Comin and Hobijn – Cross-Country Technological Adoption - Making the Theories Face the Facts

The Historical Cross Country Technology Adoption Dataset (HCCTAD) is a dataset collected by Diego Comin (NYU) and Bart Hobijn (Federal Reserve Bank of New York), to allow for the analysis of the adoption patterns of some of the major technologies introduced in the past 250 years across the world's leading industrialized economies.

Retrieved on
March 16, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.nber.org/research/data/historical-cross-country-technology-adoption-hccta-dataset
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Comin, D. and Hobijn, B. (2004). Cross-Country Technological Adoption: Making the Theories Face the Facts. Journal of Monetary Economics, 51(1), 39–83.

The Historical Cross Country Technology Adoption Dataset (HCCTAD) is a dataset collected by Diego Comin (NYU) and Bart Hobijn (Federal Reserve Bank of New York), to allow for the analysis of the adoption patterns of some of the major technologies introduced in the past 250 years across the world's leading industrialized economies.

Retrieved on
March 16, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.nber.org/research/data/historical-cross-country-technology-adoption-hccta-dataset
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Comin, D. and Hobijn, B. (2004). Cross-Country Technological Adoption: Making the Theories Face the Facts. Journal of Monetary Economics, 51(1), 39–83.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Technology and infrastructure diffusion in the United Kingdom”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Comin and Hobijn. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-161845/grapher/technology-infrastructure-diffusion-uk.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Comin and Hobijn (2004) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Comin and Hobijn (2004) – processed by Our World in Data. “Technology and infrastructure diffusion in the United Kingdom” [dataset]. Comin and Hobijn, “Cross-Country Technological Adoption - Making the Theories Face the Facts” [original data]. Retrieved May 12, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-161845/grapher/technology-infrastructure-diffusion-uk.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

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