Location and Technological Change in the American Glass Industry During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth Sokoloff

No 5938, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Scholars have attempted to explain geographic clustering in inventive activity by arguing that it is connected with clustering in production or new investment. They have offered three possible reasons for this link: because invention occurs as a result of learning by doing; because new investment encourages experimentation with novel techniques; and because there are local information flows that make inventors more fertile in areas where producers are concentrated. In this article we test these theories by studying geographic patterns of production and invention in the glass industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We find that the patterns deviate significantly from what the theories would predict, and offer the alternative hypothesis that inventive activity proceeded most intensively in areas where markets for technology had developed most fully that is, where there were localized networks of institutions that mobilized information about technological opportunities and mediated relations among inventors, suppliers of capital, and those who would commercially develop or exploit new technologies.

JEL-codes: D3 N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997-02
Note: DAE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published as as "The Geography of Invention in the American Glass Industry, 1870 1925" Journal of Economic History, Volume: 60 Issue: 03 (September 2000) Pages: 700-729

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w5938.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:5938

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w5938

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().