Knowledge Diffusion and Industry Growth: The Case of Japan's Early Cotton Spinning Industry

Serguey Braguinsky

ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka

Abstract: The diffusion of technological knowledge is key to industry growth. But not all knowledge is created equal. I use a nanoeconomic approach to examine knowledge-diffusion based growth in the Meiji-era Japanese cotton spinning industry, which enjoyed remarkable success after a decade of initial failure. By tracing sources of technological knowledge to individual engineers, I find that successful technology diffusion required the right kind of human capital embodying and transmitting knowledge, and a competitive environment that rewarded talent while weeding out incompetence.

Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-knm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/static/resources/docs/dp/2015/DP0939.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Knowledge diffusion and industry growth: the case of Japan’s early cotton spinning industry (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0939

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Librarian ().