Why Inventions Occurred in Some Countries and Not in Others?

Tiago Sequeira, Marcelo Santos and Alexandra Lopes (alexandra.ferreira.lopes@iscte-iul.pt)

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The reasons why inventions that shaped industrial revolutions, occurred in the UK and in the USA, have been suggested by economic historians. For the first time,we access the determinants of more than a hundred inventions around the world, explaining why they occurred in a given country and why some occurred earlier than others. We confirm the importance of scale effects and dismiss the importance of education as triggers of inventions. Geographic and genetic distance from the UK and the USA have proven to be significant in explaining inventions. Both distance from the UK and proximity to the USA seem to have significant effect on the rise of the probability to invent and on the probability to invent earlier.

Keywords: Inventions; Industrial Revolutions; TFP; Determinants of Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 N10 N30 O10 O50 Z1 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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