The Democratization of Invention During Early Industrialization

The Democratization of Invention During Early Industrialization PDF Author: Kenneth Lee Sokoloff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inventions
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
We employ the 1860 Census of Manufactures to study rural antebellum manufacturing in the South and Midwest, and find that manufacturing output per capita was similar across regions in counties specialized in the same agricultural products. The southern deficit in manufactures per capita appears to have been largely attributable to the very low levels of output in counties specialized in cotton production. This implies that it was the South's capabilities for the highly profitable cotton production, not the existence of slavery per se, that was responsible for the region's limited industrial development -- at least in rural areas. The other major finding is that in both the South and the Midwest measured total factor productivity was significantly lower in counties specialized in wheat (the most seasonal of agricultural products as regards labor requirements). This is consistent with suggestions that agricultural districts where the predominant crops were highly seasonal in their requirements for labor were well suited to support manufacturing enterprise during the offpeak periods.

The Democratization of Invention During Early Industrialization

The Democratization of Invention During Early Industrialization PDF Author: Kenneth Lee Sokoloff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inventions
Languages : en
Pages : 48

Get Book Here

Book Description
We employ the 1860 Census of Manufactures to study rural antebellum manufacturing in the South and Midwest, and find that manufacturing output per capita was similar across regions in counties specialized in the same agricultural products. The southern deficit in manufactures per capita appears to have been largely attributable to the very low levels of output in counties specialized in cotton production. This implies that it was the South's capabilities for the highly profitable cotton production, not the existence of slavery per se, that was responsible for the region's limited industrial development -- at least in rural areas. The other major finding is that in both the South and the Midwest measured total factor productivity was significantly lower in counties specialized in wheat (the most seasonal of agricultural products as regards labor requirements). This is consistent with suggestions that agricultural districts where the predominant crops were highly seasonal in their requirements for labor were well suited to support manufacturing enterprise during the offpeak periods.

The Democratization of Invention

The Democratization of Invention PDF Author: B. Zorina Khan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521811354
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This book, first published in 2005, examines the evolution and impact of American intellectual property rights during the 'long nineteenth century'.

Inventing the Industrial Revolution

Inventing the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: Christine MacLeod
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521893992
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This book examines the development of the English patent system and its relationship with technical change during the period between 1660 and 1800, when the patent system evolved from an instrument of royal patronage into one of commercial competition among the inventors and manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. It analyses the legal and political framework within which patenting took place and gives an account of the motivations and fortunes of patentees, who obtained patents for a variety of purposes beyond the simple protection of an invention. It includes the first in-depth attempt to gauge the reliability of the patent statistics as a measure of inventive activity and technical change in the early part of the Industrial Revolution, and suggests that the distribution of patents is a better guide to the advance of capitalism than to the centres of inventive activity. It also queries the common assumption that the chief goal of inventors was to save labour, and examines contemporary criticism of the patent system in the light of the changing conceptualisation of invention among natural scientists and political economists.

The Roots of American Industrialization

The Roots of American Industrialization PDF Author: David R. Meyer
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801871412
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Farms that were on poor soil and distant from markets declined, whereas other farms successfully adjusted production as rural and urban markets expanded and as Midwestern agricultural products flowed eastward after 1840. Rural and urban demand for manufactures in the East supported diverse industrial development and prosperous rural areas and burgeoning cities supplied increasing amounts of capital for investment.

The Routledge Handbook of Modern Economic History

The Routledge Handbook of Modern Economic History PDF Author: Robert M. Whaples
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135121206
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Modern Economic History aims to introduce readers to important approaches and findings of economic historians who study the modern world. Its short chapters reflect the most up-to-date research and are written by well-known economic historians who are authorities on their subjects. Modern economic history blends two approaches – Cliometrics (which focuses on measuring economic variables and explicitly testing theories about the historical performance and development of the economy) and the New Institutional Economics (which focuses on how social, cultural, legal and organizational norms and rules shape economic outcomes and their evolution). Part 1 of the Handbook introduces these approaches and other important methodological issues for economic history. The most fundamental shift in the economic history of the world began about two and a half centuries ago when eons of slow economic change and faltering economic growth gave way to sustained, rapid economic expansion. Part 2 examines this theme and the primary forces economic historians have linked to economic growth, stagnation and fluctuations – including technological change, entrepreneurship, competition, the biological environment, war, financial panics and business cycles. Part 3 examines the evolution of broad sectors that typify a modern economy including agriculture, banking, transportation, health care, housing, and entertainment. It begins by examining an equally important "sector" of the economy which scholars have increasingly analyzed using economic tools – religion. Part 4 focuses on the work force and human outcomes including inequality, labor markets, unions, education, immigration, slavery, urbanization, and the evolving economic roles of women and African-Americans. The text will be of great value to those taking economic history courses as well as a reference book useful to professional practitioners, policy makers and the public.

The Market Revolution in America

The Market Revolution in America PDF Author: Melvin Stokes
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813916507
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
The last decade has seen a major shift in the way nineteenth-century American history is interpreted, and increasing attention is being paid to the market revolution occurring between 1815 and the Civil War. This collection of twelve essays by preeminent scholars in nineteenth-century history aims to respond to Charles Sellers's The Market Revolution, reflecting upon the historiographic accomplishments initiated by his work, while at the same time advancing the argument across a range of fields.

Constructing a Bridge

Constructing a Bridge PDF Author: Eda Kranakis
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262112178
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
A historical look at styles of technological research and design. If it is true, as Tocqueville suggested, that social and class systems shape technology, research, and knowledge, then the effects should be visible both at the individual level and at the level of technical institutions and local environments. That is the central issue addressed in Constructing a Bridge, a tale of two cultures that investigates how national traditions shape technological communities and their institutions and become embedded in everyday engineering practice. Eda Kranakis first examines these issues in the work of two suspension bridge designers of the early nineteenth century: the American inventor James Finley and the French engineer Claude-Louis-Marie-Henri Navier. Finley--who was oriented toward the needs of rural, frontier communities--designed a bridge that could be easily reproduced and constructed by carpenters and blacksmiths. Navier--whose professional training and career reflected a tradition of monumental architecture and had linked him closely to the Parisian scientific community--designed an elegant, costly, and technically sophisticated structure to be built in an elite district of Paris. Charting the careers of these two technologists and tracing the stories of their bridges, Kranakis reveals how local environments can shape design goals, research practices, and design-to-construction processes. Kranakis then offers a broader look at the technological communities and institutions of nineteenth-century France and America and at their ties to technological practice. She shows how conditions that led to Finley's and Navier's distinct designs also fostered different systems of technical education as well as distinct ideologies and traditions of engineering research.The result of this two-tiered, comparative approach is a reorientation of a historiographic tradition initiated by Tocqueville (and explored more recently by Eugene Ferguson, John Kasson, and others) toward a finer-grained analysis of institutional and local environments as mediators between national traditions and individual styles of technological research and design.

Patent Failure

Patent Failure PDF Author: James Bessen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400828694
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
In recent years, business leaders, policymakers, and inventors have complained to the media and to Congress that today's patent system stifles innovation instead of fostering it. But like the infamous patent on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, much of the cited evidence about the patent system is pure anecdote--making realistic policy formation difficult. Is the patent system fundamentally broken, or can it be fixed with a few modest reforms? Moving beyond rhetoric, Patent Failure provides the first authoritative and comprehensive look at the economic performance of patents in forty years. James Bessen and Michael Meurer ask whether patents work well as property rights, and, if not, what institutional and legal reforms are necessary to make the patent system more effective. Patent Failure presents a wide range of empirical evidence from history, law, and economics. The book's findings are stark and conclusive. While patents do provide incentives to invest in research, development, and commercialization, for most businesses today, patents fail to provide predictable property rights. Instead, they produce costly disputes and excessive litigation that outweigh positive incentives. Only in some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, do patents act as advertised, with their benefits outweighing the related costs. By showing how the patent system has fallen short in providing predictable legal boundaries, Patent Failure serves as a call for change in institutions and laws. There are no simple solutions, but Bessen and Meurer's reform proposals need to be heard. The health and competitiveness of the nation's economy depend on it.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation: An Economic Approach

Entrepreneurship and Innovation: An Economic Approach PDF Author: Bruce A. McDaniel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317471377
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This is a groundbreaking economic analysis of entrepreneurship and the development process for innovation. The author strives to distinguish the role of the capitalist from that of an entrepreneur, and to show how the actions of the entrepreneur impact new employment, economic growth, and advancements in the overall standard of living. The book provides in-depth discussion of several critical concepts: the economic development of a product; Schumpeter's "temporary monopoly control;" the economic bounds of product and process innovations; and changing production functions. It also develops and integrates an analysis of how innovation-induced modifications in either products or processes affect both short-run and long-run average costs in production. As a special feature, each chapter includes an interview with a successful entrepreneur. Suggested readings are also provided.

The Texture of Industry

The Texture of Industry PDF Author: Robert B. Gordon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195354826
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
While historians have given ample attention to stories of entrepreneurship, invention, and labor conflict, they have told us little about actual work-places and how people worked. Workers seldom wrote about their daily employment. However, they did leave behind their tools, products, shops, and factories as well as the surrounding industrial landscapes and communities. In this book, Gordon and Malone look at the industrialization of North America from the perspective of the industrial archaeologist. Using material evidence from such varied sites as Indian steatite quarries, automobile plants, and coal mines, they examine manufacturing technology, transportation systems, and the effects of industrialization on the land. Their research greatly expands our understanding of industry and focuses attention on the contributions of anonymous artisans whose skills shaped our industrial heritage.