Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine

Alessandro Nuvolari

No 01-05, DRUID Working Papers from DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies

Abstract: In this paper, we argue that together with individual inventors and firms, what Robert C. Allen (1983) has termed as collective invention settings (that is settings in which rival firms freely release each other pertinent technical information), were also a crucial source of innovation in the industrial revolution period. Until now, this has been very little considered in the literature. This paper focuses on one of these cases: the Cornish mining district. In Cornwall, during the early nineteenth century, a notable collective invention setting, gradually emerged. This case is particularly remarkable because it was capable of generating a continuous and sustained flow of improvements in steam pumping technology which in the end greatly contributed to improve the thermodynamic efficiency of the steam engine. In this paper we study in detail the specific economic circumstances that led to the formation of this collective invention setting and we analyses its consequences for the rate of technological innovation

Keywords: Collective inventions; information sharing; case study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 L61 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Collective invention during the British Industrial Revolution: the case of the Cornish pumping engine (2004)
Working Paper: Collective invention during the British Industrial Revolution: the case of the Cornish pumping engine (2004)
Working Paper: Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution: The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine (2001)
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