Patent Counts and Textile Invention: A Comment on Griffiths, Hunt, and O’Brien

Richard Sullivan

The Journal of Economic History, 1995, vol. 55, issue 3, 666-670

Abstract: Our best estimates fail to reveal significant quantitative changes in the level of macroeconomic variables (such as per capita output or the savings rate) for Britain during the eighteenth century.1 Efforts that investigate economic activity at the industrial level are, therefore, well placed if the concept of Industrial Revolution is to remain useful. For example, N. F. R. Crafts and T. C. Mills use a segmented quadratic-trend model of industrial production and find that the trend rate of growth accelerated in 1776.2 In addition, my own research has revealed trend acceleration for industrial-level patented invention in the 1760-to-1790 period, which is consistent with Joel Mokyr’s argument that the essence of the Industrial Revolution was a cluster of pivotal “macroinventions” made in this period.3

Date: 1995
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