In this paper, we argue that together with individual inventors and firms, what Robert Allen (1983) has termed as collective invention settings ( that is settings in which rival firms freely release each other pertinent technical information and in which each firm incrementally improved on a basic common technological layout), was also an important source of innovation in the industrial revolution period. Until now, this has been very little considered in the literature. This paper focuses on one of these cases: the Cornish mining district. In Cornwall, during the early nineteenth century, a notable collective invention setting, gradually emerged. This case is particularly remarkable because it was capable of generating a continuous and sustained flow of improvements in steam pumping technology which in the end greatly contributed to improve the thermodynamic efficiency of the steam engine (see Von Tunzelmann, 1978). In this paper we study in detail the specific economic circumstances that led to the formation of this collective invention setting and we analyse its consequences for the rate of technological innovation.
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Paper provided by DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies in its series DRUID Working Papers with number
01-05.
Find related papers by JEL classification: O31 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information L61 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Metals and Metal Products; Cement; Glass; Ceramics
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Francesco Rullani, 2006.
"Dragging developers towards the core,"
CESPRI Working Papers
190, CESPRI, Centre for Research on Innovation and Internationalisation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Feb 2007.
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