IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v55y1995i03p671-672_04.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

There Is Nothing Outside the Text, and There Is No Safety in Numbers: A Reply to Sullivan

Author

Listed:
  • O’Brien, Patrick K.
  • Griffiths, Trevor
  • Hunt, Philip

Abstract

Historians and economists have long been in need of index numbers to measure both the volume (real value) of activity that is undertaken to produce process or product innovations over time, and also a counterpart index that might capture the outcome of that activity (the volume of inventions) that come on stream year after year. For purposes of measurement the first index can in principle be equated (within tolerable limits of accuracy) with the real annual expenditures on research and development as recorded (at least for recent times) in governmental, corporate, company, and other accounts. Alas, for years before 1914 national or even industry-wide research and development expenditures are very rarely recorded in a form that might allow for the construction of an index number.

Suggested Citation

  • 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(3), pages 671-672, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:55:y:1995:i:03:p:671-672_04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S002205070004170X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nuvolari, Alessandro & Tartari, Valentina & Tranchero, Matteo, 2021. "Patterns of innovation during the Industrial Revolution: A reappraisal using a composite indicator of patent quality," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Nuvolari, Alessandro & Tartari, Valentina, 2011. "Bennet Woodcroft and the value of English patents, 1617-1841," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 97-115, January.
    3. Alessandro Nuvolari & Valentina Tartari, 2009. "Mr Woodcroft and the value of English patents of invention, 1617-1852," Working Papers 9015, Economic History Society.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:55:y:1995:i:03:p:671-672_04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.