IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ebg/heccah/1650.html

Business Dynamism and Innovation: Evidence from Novel 19th-Century Microdata

Author

Listed:
  • Bergeaud, Antonin

    (HEC Paris - Economics & Decision Sciences)

  • Nur Gozen, Ruveyda

    (Cardiff University - Cardiff Business School)

  • Gozen, Suleyman

    (University of Bristol)

Abstract

We construct a novel establishment-level dataset combining the nineteenth-century U.S. Census of Manufactures (1850-1880) with patent records from CUSP to examine how innovation shaped firm performance in early industrial America. Patenting establishments were substantially larger than comparable non-patenters across all dimensions (employment, capital, output, and output per worker) with premia further amplified among firms that produced breakthrough inventions. Estimating establishment-level production functions using Levinsohn-Petrin approach, we find that patenting is associated with higher revenue total factor productivity (TFPR) while leaving markups unchanged on average. Breakthrough innovations, however, are associated with gains on both margins, with a size decomposition revealing the strongest amplification among the largest establishments, consistent with superstar dynamics, yet small breakthrough innovators also capture meaningful gains, suggesting the returns to invention were not exclusive to large firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Bergeaud, Antonin & Nur Gozen, Ruveyda & Gozen, Suleyman, 2026. "Business Dynamism and Innovation: Evidence from Novel 19th-Century Microdata," HEC Research Papers Series 1650, HEC Paris.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:heccah:1650
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=7144078
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • N61 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N71 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    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:ebg:heccah:1650. 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: David Melon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hecpafr.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.