{"title":"Dissertation Executive Summary: Fuel of Interest and Fire of Genius: Essays on the Economic History of Innovation","authors":"Michael J. Andrews","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3081168","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In this dissertation, I use historical patent data and natural experiments to show how policies and institutions affect invention. Chapter 1 shows that establishing new colleges causes 33% more patents per year in places that get a college, but few of these additional patents come from the college's graduates. Chapter 2 uses alcohol prohibition to show that informal social interactions are important for invention: shuttering saloons decreased patenting by 15%. The effect is strongest immediately after prohibition begins. Chapter 3 plots demographic trends of inventors; blacks and females are persistently underrepresented. Chapter 4 describes several historical patent datasets in detail.","PeriodicalId":325993,"journal":{"name":"Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Research Paper Series","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Research Paper Series","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3081168","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this dissertation, I use historical patent data and natural experiments to show how policies and institutions affect invention. Chapter 1 shows that establishing new colleges causes 33% more patents per year in places that get a college, but few of these additional patents come from the college's graduates. Chapter 2 uses alcohol prohibition to show that informal social interactions are important for invention: shuttering saloons decreased patenting by 15%. The effect is strongest immediately after prohibition begins. Chapter 3 plots demographic trends of inventors; blacks and females are persistently underrepresented. Chapter 4 describes several historical patent datasets in detail.