IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/unumer/2016061.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patents, exhibitions and markets for innovation in the early twentieth century: Evidence from Turin 1911 International Exhibition

Author

Listed:
  • Domini, Giacomo

    (UNU-MERIT, and University of Siena)

Abstract

This work contributes to the recent literature on international exhibitions, and on the use of data from these events as a proxy for innovation in economic history. In particular, it investigates the nature of international exhibitions, the role they played in the early twentieth century, the reasons why economic agents attended them, the relationship between exhibition data and patent data, and their suitability for measuring innovation. To do so, it makes an in-depth analysis of the International Exhibition held in Turin in 1911, and it matches a new database, built from the catalogue of this event, with data about patents granted in Italy. It is found that exhibiting and patenting did mostly occur separately, as exhibitions mainly worked as markets for products, which attracted firms, while patents were primarily taken out by individuals, most of whom might not be interested in that function. Yet, the presence is observed of a qualified niche of independent inventors, using the exhibition as a market for ideas, i.e. to advertise their findings to a selected public of potential investors, buyers or licensees.

Suggested Citation

  • Domini, Giacomo, 2016. "Patents, exhibitions and markets for innovation in the early twentieth century: Evidence from Turin 1911 International Exhibition," MERIT Working Papers 2016-061, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2016061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2016/wp2016-061.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Toniolo, Gianni (ed.), 2013. "The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199936694, Decembrie.
    2. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    3. Alessandro Nuvolari, 2004. "Collective invention during the British Industrial Revolution: the case of the Cornish pumping engine," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 28(3), pages 347-363, May.
    4. B. Zorina Khan, 2013. "Going for Gold. Industrial Fairs and Innovation in the Nineteenth-Century United States," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 64(1), pages 89-113.
    5. Alessandro Nuvolari & Michelangelo Vasta, 2015. "Independent invention in Italy during the Liberal Age, 1861–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 858-886, August.
    6. Naomi R. Lamoreaux & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 1999. "Inventors, Firms, and the Market for Technology in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," NBER Chapters, in: Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries, pages 19-60, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    8. Andrea Colli & Michelangelo Vasta, 2010. "Introduction: Forms of Enterprise in 20th Century Italy," Chapters, in: Andrea Colli & Michelangelo Vasta (ed.), Forms of Enterprise in 20th Century Italy, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Anna Missiaia, 2016. "Where do we go from here? Market access and regional development in Italy (1871–1911)," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(2), pages 215-241.
    10. Naomi R. Lamoreaux & Daniel M. G. Raff & Peter Temin, 1999. "Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number lamo99-1, July.
    11. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Allen, Robert C., 1983. "Collective invention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, March.
    13. Andrea Colli & Michelangelo Vasta (ed.), 2010. "Forms of Enterprise in 20th Century Italy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12795, December.
    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. Giacomo Domini, 2019. "Exhibitions, patents, and innovation in the early twentieth century: evidence from the Turin 1911 International Exhibition," LEM Papers Series 2019/04, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Petra Moser, 2012. "Innovation without Patents: Evidence from World's Fairs," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 43-74.
    3. Petra Moser, 2012. "Patent Laws and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History," NBER Working Papers 18631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Petra Moser, 2016. "Patents and Innovation in Economic History," NBER Working Papers 21964, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patents and the first industrial revolution in the United States, France and Britain, 1700-1850," IAST Working Papers 14-14, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    6. David Andersson & Thor Berger & Erik Prawitz, 2023. "Making a Market: Infrastructure, Integration, and the Rise of Innovation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 258-274, March.
    7. Wagenaar, Homer & Colvin, Christopher L., 2025. "Patently peculiar: Patents and innovation in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands," QUCEH Working Paper Series 25-04, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History, revised 2025.
    8. Suominen, Arho & Deschryvere, Matthias & Narayan, Rumy, 2023. "Uncovering value through exploration of barriers - A perspective on intellectual property rights in a national innovation system," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    9. Arora, Ashish & Gambardella, Alfonso, 2010. "The Market for Technology," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 641-678, Elsevier.
    10. Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine, 2013. "The Case against Patents," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    11. Arora, Ashish & Athreye, Suma & Huang, Can, 2016. "The paradox of openness revisited: Collaborative innovation and patenting by UK innovators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1352-1361.
    12. Breschi, Stefano & Lissoni, Francesco, 2001. "Knowledge Spillovers and Local Innovation Systems: A Critical Survey," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(4), pages 975-1005, December.
    13. Jeffrey L. Furman & Markus Nagler & Martin Watzinger, 2021. "Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 239-270, November.
    14. Bronwyn Hall & Christian Helmers & Mark Rogers & Vania Sena, 2014. "The Choice between Formal and Informal Intellectual Property: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(2), pages 375-423, June.
    15. Henkel, Joachim, 2006. "Selective revealing in open innovation processes: The case of embedded Linux," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 953-969, September.
    16. Ming Liu & Sumner la Croix, 2013. "A Cross-Country Index of Intellectual Property Rights in Pharmaceutical Innovations," Working Papers 201313, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    17. Perkmann, Markus & Schildt, Henri, 2015. "Open data partnerships between firms and universities: The role of boundary organizations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1133-1143.
    18. Gaetan de Rassenfosse, 2025. "What Proportion of Knowledge is Patented?," Papers 2501.18043, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2025.
    19. Rebecca Williams & Les Oxley, 2016. "The Geography of Inventiveness in the Primary Sector: Some Initial Results for New Zealand, 1880–1895," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 56(2), pages 151-173, July.
    20. Josef Taalbi & Mikhail Martynovich, 2024. "On the urban bias of patents and the scaling of innovation," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2422, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2024.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N74 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Europe: 1913-
    • 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

    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:unm:unumer:2016061. 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: Ad Notten The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Ad Notten to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.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.