"War, what is it good for?": The industrial revolution!

Stephen Billington

No 2018-12, QUCEH Working Paper Series from Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History

Abstract: Did the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars contribute to the Industrial Revolution? Recent scholarship argues warfare was an important factor in explaining Britain's industrialisation, by encouraging the invention and diffusion of key technologies with military applications. I re-examine this hypothesis by analysing the patenting of military inventions and inventions considered to be economically valuable during the Industrial Revolution. I find war led to a permanent increase in the rate of military and valuable patenting. War likely created a demand for superior military technologies, while increased wartime production led to demands for more valuable technologies, which both stimulated the Industrial Revolution.

Keywords: Industrial Revolution; Patents; War (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N43 N74 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201812

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