Published Quarterly Journal of Economics Online 10 Apr 2026 Published Jul 2026Codification, Technology Absorption, and the Globalization of the Industrial RevolutionRéka Juhász · Shogo Sakabe · David E WeinsteinResearch question and motivation: Why did the First Industrial Revolution (IR) spread to Meiji Japan—and to essentially no other non-Western country—during the first wave of globalization? The paper …