War and the Returns to Entrepreneurial Innovation among US Patentees, 1790-1870

Zorina B Khan

Brussels Economic Review, 2009, vol. 52, issue 3/4, 239-273

Abstract: Wars create dramatic changes in incentives for entrepreneurship and innovation, which need to be understood if we are to gauge the more subtle costs and benefits of armed conflict. This study examines the effect of the American Civil War on patterns of patenting and on the returns to inventive activity among patentees. The sample includes “great inventors” who achieved national eminence, patentees who created war-related inventions, all of the Confederate and Southern patentees, and a panel of over 8000 patents filed between 1790 and 1870. The empirical analysis focuses on the extent to which an entrepreneurial response to the armed conflict was associated with disproportionate changes in the wealth of inventors relative to the general population.

Keywords: Civil war; Military inventions; Technology, innovation; Patents; Wealth; Returns to inventors; Entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M13 N41 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: Numéro Spécial « Vers une nouvelle histoire économique des brevets ?» Editeurs :Claude Diebolt et Karine Pellier
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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