IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cuf/wpaper/803.html

The Republican Spirit of Innovism and Long-Run Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Danyang Xie

    (Society Hub, HKUST (Guangzhou))

  • Heng-Fu Zou

    (The World Bank, Washington, D. C. 20433, USA
    Institute for Advanced Study, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China
    China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, 100081, China)

Abstract

This paper embeds the republican spirit of innovism-dignity for ordinary people, liberty of entry and speech, and fair reward-into a modern ideas-based growth model to explain the Great Enrichment. Innovism is treated as a produced, nonrival social technology that multiplies production and raises the effectiveness of research, reconciling economic history with a semi-endogenous Jones framework. Small, persistent gains in civic permission and legal predictability sustain the frontier’s one-to-two percent per-capita growth as demographics slow, while backsliding lowers the slope. The model yields transparent balanced-growth conditions, ties adjudication and entry reforms to capital deepening, and shows how open science enhances research productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Danyang Xie & Heng-Fu Zou, 2025. "The Republican Spirit of Innovism and Long-Run Growth," CEMA Working Papers 803, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cuf:wpaper:803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://down.aefweb.net/WorkingPapers/w803.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    2. Allen,Robert C., 2009. "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521868273, January.
    3. Gregory Clark, 2007. "Introduction to A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Introductory Chapters, in: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Princeton University Press.
    4. Greif,Avner, 2006. "Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521480444, January.
    5. Edmund Phelps, 2015. "Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 10058-2.
    6. Douglass C. North, 2005. "Introduction to Understanding the Process of Economic Change," Introductory Chapters, in: Understanding the Process of Economic Change, Princeton University Press.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicholas Crafts, 2010. "Cliometrics and technological change: a survey," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 1127-1147.
    2. Maseland, Robbert, 2021. "Contingent determinants," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Gennady Bilych, 2013. "Democratic Changes and Economic Growth," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 3(1), pages 461-486, June.
    4. Mark Koyama, 2013. "Preindustrial Cliometrics," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 268-278, June.
    5. Peter Temin, 2024. "Economic History and Economic Development: New Economic History in Retrospect and Prospect," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 91-108, Springer.
    6. Pranab Bardhan, 2016. "State and Development: The Need for a Reappraisal of the Current Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(3), pages 862-892, September.
    7. Couyoumdjian, Juan Pablo & Larroulet, Cristián, 2018. "Ideas, leaders, and institutions in 19th-century Chile," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 925-947, October.
    8. Victor Court, 2018. "Energy Capture, Technological Change, and Economic Growth: An Evolutionary Perspective," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-27, September.
    9. Boettke, Peter J. & Coyne, Christopher J. & Leeson, Peter T., 2013. "Comparative historical political economy," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 285-301, September.
    10. Pranab Bardhan, 2015. "State and Economic Development: The Need for a Reappraisal of the Current Literature," Working Papers id:7060, eSocialSciences.
    11. Leonard Dudley, 2017. "Language standardization and the Industrial Revolution," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1138-1161.
    12. Barry R. Weingast, 2017. "Adam Smith’s Theory of Violence and the Political Economics of Development," NBER Chapters, in: Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development, pages 51-81, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Claridge, Jordan & Delabastita, Vincent & Gibbs, Spike, 2024. "(In-kind) Wages and labour relations in the Middle Ages: It’s not (all) about the money," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    14. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Pessôa, Samuel & Santos, Marcelo Rodrigues, 2011. "Globalization and the Industrial Revolution," Insper Working Papers wpe_253, Insper Working Paper, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa.
    15. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "Institutions as cognitive media between strategic interactions and individual beliefs," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 17, pages 298-312, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Stephen Broadberry & Bruce Campbell & Alexander Klein & Mark Overton, 2010. "British economic growth, 1300-1850: some preliminary estimates," Working Papers 10009, Economic History Society.
    17. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2017. "Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 379-394.
    18. Clark, Gregory, 2014. "The Industrial Revolution," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 217-262, Elsevier.
    19. Ken Tabata, 2013. "The Expansion of the Commercial Sector and the Child Quantity-Quality Transition in a Malthusian World," Discussion Paper Series 105, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised May 2013.
    20. Loren Brandt & Debin Ma & Thomas G. Rawski, 2014. "From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History behind China's Economic Boom," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 45-123, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cuf:wpaper:803. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Qiang Gao (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emcufcn.html .

    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.