Download or read book The Democratization of Invention During Early Industrialization written by Kenneth Lee Sokoloff and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Democratization of Invention written by B. Zorina Khan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-12 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 2005, examines the evolution and impact of American intellectual property rights during the 'long nineteenth century'.
Download or read book Inventing the Industrial Revolution written by Christine MacLeod and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Roots of American Industrialization written by David R. Meyer and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-05-21 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Constructing a Bridge written by Eda Kranakis and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Patent Failure written by James Bessen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-03 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Citizen Scholar written by Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr. and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays reflecting on Edgar as friend and colleague and on the subjects of his scholarly work Citizen-Scholar comprises essays written in honor of Walter Edgar, South Carolina's preeminent historian and founding director of the University of South Carolina (USC) Institute for Southern Studies. In the opening overview of Edgar's impressive academic career, editor Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., discusses Edgar's role as the Palmetto State's omnipresent public historian, radio program host, author of the landmark South Carolina: A History, and editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia. The former George Washington Distinguished Professor of History, Claude Henry Neuffer Chair of Southern Studies, and Louise Fry Scudder Professor, Edgar has been recognized with inductions into the South Carolina Hall of Fame and the South Carolina Higher Education Hall of Fame and has received the South Carolina Order of the Palmetto and the South Carolina Governor's Award in the Humanities. The first section of Citizen-Scholar features personal essays about Edgar and his legacy from author and historian Winston Groom, USC vice president Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, USC president Harris Pastides, and historian Mark M. Smith. The essays that follow are written by some of the nation's most renowned scholars of southern history and culture including Charles Joyner, Andrew H. Myers, Barbara L. Bellows, John M. Sherrer III, Orville Vernon Burton, Bernard E. Powers Jr., Peter A. Coclanis, John McCardell, James C. Cobb, Amy Thompson McCandless, and Lacy K. Ford, Jr. The second section of the collection includes essays spanning a range of regional, national, and international topics, all associated with Edgar's research. These essays were written as a tribute to Edgar, both as a historian and as a public scholar, a man actively involved in his profession as well as in his community, both locally and statewide.
Download or read book Entrepreneurship and Innovation An Economic Approach written by Bruce A. McDaniel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Texture of Industry written by Robert B. Gordon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-02-06 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Challenge of Remaining Innovative written by Sally H. Clarke and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The contributors explore two main themes: the challenge of remaining innovative and the necessity of managing institutional boundaries in doing so. The book is organized into four parts, which move outward from individual firms; to networks or clusters of firms; to consultants and other intermediaries in the private economy who operate outside of the firms themselves; and finally to government institutions and politics. "--Editor.
Download or read book Toward Pro poor Policies written by Bertil Tungodden and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This annual conference has become a key event in Europe for the discussion of development issues. It is a unique platform for many of the world's finest development thinkers and experienced policymakers to present their perspectives, ideas, and to challenge researchers and senior staff of the World Bank and other organizations with their views. These papers look at a number of compelling issues surrounding the topic of development.
Download or read book Intellectual Property Law and History written by Steven Wilf and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 845 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intellectual property has become a dominant feature of our knowledge based economy in recent years, but how has property rights in intangible items developed? This book brings together for the first time exemplary scholarship with diverse approaches to the history of United States intellectual property protection, including trade secrets, trademark, copyright, and patent law. These articles, written by leading experts in the field and often challenging conventional narratives, underscore the importance of historical perspectives for understanding how an extensive, evolving framework for the regulation of knowledge emerged in the modern period. By tracing intellectual property from an historical perspective - not merely providing justifications in philosophy or economics in the abstract - this book draws upon the past to address contemporary debates over such varied topics as: access to knowledge; policing copyright infringement; whether employees should own the products of their minds; the role of national borders in an age of digital information; and the very future of intellectual property as stakeholders and consumers contest the extent of its legal protection.
Download or read book Natural Resources and Economic Growth written by Marc Badia-Miró and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-22 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between natural capital and economic growth is an open debate in the field of economic development. Is an abundance of natural resources a blessing or a curse for economic performance? The field of Economic History offers an excellent vantage to explore the relevance of institutions, technical progress and supply-demand drivers. Natural Resources and Economic Growth contains theoretical and empirical articles by leading scholars who have studied this subject in different historical periods from the 19th century to the present day and in different parts of the world. Part I presents the theoretical issues and discusses the meaning of the "curse" and the relevance of the historical perspective. Part II captures the diversity of experiences, presenting thirteen independent case studies based on historical results from North and South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe. This book emphasizes that an abundance of natural resources is not a fixed situation. It is a process that reacts to changes in the structure of commodity prices and factor endowments, and progress requires capital, labour, technical change and appropriate institutional arrangements. This abundance is not a given, but is part of the evolution of the economic system. History shows that institutional quality is the key factor to deal with abundant natural resources and, especially, with the rents derived from their use and exploitation. This wide ranging volume will be of great relevance to all those with an interest in economic history, development, economic growth, natural resources, world history and institutional economics.
Download or read book The Invention of Enterprise written by David S. Landes and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-26 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping global history of entrepreneurial innovation Whether hailed as heroes or cast as threats to social order, entrepreneurs—and their innovations—have had an enormous influence on the growth and prosperity of nations. The Invention of Enterprise gathers together, for the first time, leading economic historians to explore the entrepreneur's role in society from antiquity to the present. Addressing social and institutional influences from a historical context, each chapter examines entrepreneurship during a particular period and in an important geographic location. The book chronicles the sweeping history of enterprise in Mesopotamia and Neo-Babylon; carries the reader through the Islamic Middle East; offers insights into the entrepreneurial history of China, Japan, and Colonial India; and describes the crucial role of the entrepreneur in innovative activity in Europe and the United States, from the medieval period to today. In considering the critical contributions of entrepreneurship, the authors discuss why entrepreneurial activities are not always productive and may even sabotage prosperity. They examine the institutions and restrictions that have enabled or impeded innovation, and the incentives for the adoption and dissemination of inventions. They also describe the wide variations in global entrepreneurial activity during different historical periods and the similarities in development, as well as entrepreneurship's role in economic growth. The book is filled with past examples and events that provide lessons for promoting and successfully pursuing contemporary entrepreneurship as a means of contributing to the welfare of society. The Invention of Enterprise lays out a definitive picture for all who seek an understanding of innovation's central place in our world.
Download or read book Technology and Human Capital in Historical Perspective written by Jonas Ljungberg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2004-10-29 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One theme of this volume is whether the complementarity between technology and human capital is a recent phenomenon, or whether it can be traced through history. Different approaches to human capital as well as technology are applied, and besides historical surveys are total factor productivity and patent data employed. The studies deal with the Iberian peninsula, Scandinavia, and Canada, countries displaying different patterns in the international development.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Capitalism Volume 1 The Rise of Capitalism From Ancient Origins to 1848 written by Larry Neal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism provides a comprehensive account of the evolution of capitalism from its earliest beginnings. Starting with its distant origins in ancient Babylon, successive chapters trace progression up to the 'Promised Land' of capitalism in America. Adopting a wide geographical coverage and comparative perspective, the international team of authors discuss the contributions of Greek, Roman, and Asian civilizations to the development of capitalism, as well as the Chinese, Indian and Arab empires. They determine what features of modern capitalism were present at each time and place, and why the various precursors of capitalism did not survive. Looking at the eventual success of medieval Europe and the examples of city-states in northern Italy and the Low Countries, the authors address how British mercantilism led to European imitations and American successes, and ultimately, how capitalism became global.
Download or read book Handbook of Finance and Development written by Thorsten Beck and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between financial and real sector development. The different chapters, written by leading contributors in the field, survey research on the importance of financial development for economic growth, the causes and consequences of financial fragility, the historic development of financial systems in several major economies and regions of the world, and the regulatory and supervisory underpinnings of financial sector development.
