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Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution: The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine

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Alessandro Nuvolari

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Abstract

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.

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Date of creation: 2001
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Handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:01-05

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Related research
Keywords: collective inventions; information sharing; case study;

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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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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Nelson, Richard R., 1990. "Capitalism as an engine of progress," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 193-214, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Sullivan, Richard J., 1989. "England's Age of invention: The acceleration of patents and patentable invention during the industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 424-452, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Freeman, Chris, 1994. "The Economics of Technical Change," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(5), pages 463-514, October.
  4. O?Brien, Patrick K. & Griffiths, Trevor & Hunt, Philip, 1995. "There Is Nothing Outside the Text, and There Is No Safety in Numbers: A Reply to Sullivan," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(03), pages 671-672, September. [Downloadable!]
  5. Allen, Robert C., 1983. "Collective invention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Naomi R. Lamoreaux & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 1997. "Location and Technological Change in the American Glass Industry During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," NBER Working Papers 5938, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Dosi, Giovanni, 1988. "Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 1120-71, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Merges, Robert P. & Nelson, Richard R., 1994. "On limiting or encouraging rivalry in technical progress: The effect of patent scope decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 1-24, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Peter B. Meyer, 2003. "Episodes of Collective Invention," Working Papers 368, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Jeroen de Jong & Eric von Hippel, 2008. "User Innovation in SMEs: Incidence and Transfer to Producers," Scales Research Reports H200814, EIM Business and Policy Research. [Downloadable!]
  3. Alfonso Gambardella & Bronwyn H. Hall, 2005. "Proprietary vs. Public Domain Licensing of Software and Research Products," NBER Working Papers 11120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Francesco Rullani, 2006. "Dragging developers towards the core. How the Free/Libre/Open Source Software community enhances developers’ contribution," LEM Papers Series 2006/22, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  5. Cowan,Robin, 2004. "Network models of innovation and knowledge diffusion," Research Memoranda 016, Maastricht : MERIT, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology. [Downloadable!]
  6. Serguey Braguinsky & Salavat Gabdrakhmanov & Atsushi Ohyama, 2007. "A Theory of Competitive Industry Dynamics With Innovation and Imitation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(4), pages 729-760, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Nuvolari, A., 2003. "Open source software development: some historical perspectives," ECIS Working Papers 03.01, Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies, Eindhoven University of Technology. [Downloadable!]
  8. Castaldi, C. & Nuvolari, A., 2003. "Technological Revolutions and Economic Growth:The “Age of Steam” Reconsidered," ECIS Working Papers 03.25, Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies, Eindhoven University of Technology. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Nuvolari, A. & Verspagen, B., 2005. "'Unravelling the Duty': Lean’s Engine Reporter and Cornish Steam Engineering," ECIS Working Papers 05.14, Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies, Eindhoven University of Technology. [Downloadable!]
  10. Julien Pénin, 2008. "More open than open innovation? Rethinking the concept of openness in innovation studies," Working Papers of BETA 2008-18, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, ULP, Strasbourg. [Downloadable!]
  11. 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. [Downloadable!]
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