IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7107.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inventive Activity and the Market for Technology in the United States, 1840-1920

Author

Listed:
  • Naomi R. Lamoreaux
  • Kenneth L. Sokoloff

Abstract

The growth of the U.S. economy over the nineteenth century was characterized by a sharp acceleration in the rate of inventive activity and a dramatic rise in the relative importance of highly specialized inventors as generators of new technological knowledge. Relying on evidence compiled from patent records, we argue that the evolution of a market for technology played a central role in these developments. Across both individuals and geographic areas, the expansion of opportunities to trade in patent rights was closely associated with increases in specialization at invention, as well as advances in rates of invention more generally. The patent system is often celebrated for the stimulus to invention provided by granting limited monopoly rights to inventors for the use of their discoveries, but its specification of tradable assets in technology has also been important.

Suggested Citation

  • Naomi R. Lamoreaux & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 1999. "Inventive Activity and the Market for Technology in the United States, 1840-1920," NBER Working Papers 7107, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7107
    Note: DAE PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7107.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Figueroa, Nicolás & Serrano, Carlos J., 2019. "Patent trading flows of small and large firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1601-1616.
    2. Carlos J. Serrano, 2010. "The dynamics of the transfer and renewal of patents," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(4), pages 686-708, December.
    3. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas, 2017. "The Rise of American Ingenuity: Innovation and Inventors of the Golden Age," Working Papers 2017-6, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    4. Jonathan Chiu & Cesaire Meh & Randall Wright, 2017. "Innovation And Growth With Financial, And Other, Frictions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(1), pages 95-125, February.
    5. Jeon, Heesang, 2015. "Knowledge and Contemporary Capitalism in Light of Marx's Value Theory," Thesis Commons g5njk, Center for Open Science.
    6. Fischer, Timo & Henkel, Joachim, 2012. "Patent trolls on markets for technology – An empirical analysis of NPEs’ patent acquisitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 1519-1533.
    7. Carlos J. Serrano, 2011. "Estimating the Gains from Trade in the Market for Innovation: Evidence from the Transfer of Patents," NBER Working Papers 17304, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Henkel, Joachim & Rønde, Thomas & Wagner, Marcus, 2015. "And the winner is—Acquired. Entrepreneurship as a contest yielding radical innovations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 295-310.
    9. Symeonidou, Noni & Bruneel, Johan & Autio, Erkko, 2017. "Commercialization strategy and internationalization outcomes in technology-based new ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 302-317.
    10. William H. Phillips, 2008. "The Democratization of Invention in the American South: Antebellum and Post Bellum Technology Markets in the United States," Working Papers 0804, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    11. Charlotta Dahlborg & Danielle Lewensohn & Rickard Danell & Carl Johan Sundberg, 2017. "To invent and let others innovate: a framework of academic patent transfer modes," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 538-563, June.
    12. Jonathan Chiu & Cesaire Meh & Randall Wright, 2017. "Innovation And Growth With Financial, And Other, Frictions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58, pages 95-125, February.
    13. Drivas, Kyriakos & Fafaliou, Irene & Fampiou, Elpiniki & Yannelis, Demetrius, 2014. "The Effect of Patent Grant on the Geographic Reach of Patent Sales," MPRA Paper 60099, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:nbr:nberwo:7107. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.