2023/26 | LEM Working Paper Series | ||||||||||||||||
Innovation, localized externalities, and the British Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850 |
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Ugo M. Gragnolati and Alessandro Nuvolari |
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Keywords | |||||||||||||||||
Inventor location; Patents; Localized externalities; Industrial Revolution.
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JEL Classifications | |||||||||||||||||
C31, N73, N93, O33, R12
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Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
We study the determinants of the spatial distribution of patent inventors at the county
level for Great Britain between 1700-1850. Our empirical analysis rests on the localization
model by Bottazzi et al. (2007) and on the related estimation procedure by Bottazzi
and Gragnolati (2015). Such an approach helps in particular to discriminate the role of
localized externalities against other descriptors of county attractiveness. Our results show
that, while the underlying geography of production remained a strong determinant of
inventor location all throughout the industrial revolution, the effect of localized externalities
among patent inventors went from being nearly absent in the early phases of
industrialization to becoming a major driver of inventor location. In particular, local interactions
among the ''mass'' of generic inventors turn out to be at least as important as interactions
with ''elite'' inventors.
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