Preliminary Programme

The present paper uses a novel approach in quantifying the diffusion of Newcomen engines in the British economy prior to the commercial application of the first Watt engine. It begins by pointing out omissions and discrepancies between the original Kanefsky database and the secondary literature leading to a number of revisions of the former. The diffusion path is subsequently drawn in terms of adopted horsepower and adjusted for the proportion of the latter being in use throughout the period. This methodology differs from previous studies which quantify the number of steam engines and do not take into account engines falling out of use. The results are presented in terms of aggregate, sectoral, and regional patterns of diffusion. The most important contribution of the paper is that, following the standard literature on technological diffusion, it does not assess the diffusion path based on how fast is the process of going from the first to the last engine installed; instead, it weighs the number of engines installed by the end of the period in relation to the potential range of adopters. In the end, this method generates a less celebratory assessment regarding the pace of diffusion of Newcomen engines. (Show less)

The market for technology created by the first German national patent law of 1877 reveals a complex dynamic between individual inventors who sought returns on their creative ideas and firms who had the necessary resources to commercialize the resulting technologies. German patent law emphasized invention over inventor and incorporated the concept of the firm invention (Betriebserfindung) from its inception. Although individual inventors were responsible for a significant portion of inventive activity before 1914, the high costs associated with obtaining patent rights gave a distinct advantage to large firms with extensive resources to organize inventive activity around in-house R&D programs. Despite these advantages, firms had to negotiate the proprietary boundaries of their employee-inventors who conceived their work as a result of indiviudal creative efforts while developing an intellectual and legal environment that emphasized a colloborative process of invention.

While the notion of ‘scientific teamwork’ has characterized the conduct of research in the ‘Big Science’ era of twentieth century American science, the German patent law facilitated the organization of ‘team’ or collaborative research efforts by German firms in the nineteenth century. Analysis of employment contracts between German employee inventors and management at a large German chemical firm in the nineteenth century reveal the limits of management to re-organize inventive activity as a purely colloborative endeavor. Conflicts between chemists and firm management centered on the issue of intellectual property rights, and many of them could not be resolved by financial incentives alone. Employee-inventors demanded recognition by the firm of their individual inventive efforts that contributed to generation of valuable new technology. In my paper, I will analyze the debates about the relationship of the employee-inventor to his inventive activity from the viewpoint of the inventors and management that led to bitter exchanges and calls for reform. These debates reveal a complex relationship between firm management and employee inventors, and show how individual inventors and firm management drew the boundaries of individual and corporate ownership of new ideas, the autonomy to set research goals and pursue new avenues of inquiry, and the inventive efforts to develop new products.
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My paper deals with the relationship between vocational tuition and industrialization in Italy between the Unification and the First World War. The history of this kind of school has not been afforded enough yet in Italian historical literature. Several economic historians have complained this situation: indeed the knowledge of the history of vocational tuition could help to understand the path of Italian economic development. Moreover, it might help to understand how human capital affected economic growth. Hence, my attempt is to fill the gap and to analyze the history vocational schools both on a legislative and an economical perspective.
As far as the first perspective concerns, I am analyzing the legislative path of italian vocational tuition; then I am contrasting it with European ones, above all France, England and German ones. Moreover, the research is focusing on the differences between state schools and private ones: the latter were particularly sprawled in North Italy and, until now, they haven’t been studied as a whole.
As far as the second perspective concerns, I am studying the influence of vocational tuition on the development of the human capital and on the industrialization in Italy.
The stumbling block of the object is the lack of resources. The global data about Italian vocational schools are scarce because vocational schools were managed by local authorities or private citizens. Hence it’s necessary to read the booklets the schools published: these resources help to fill some blank spaces that the sources produced by the state left. To reach the task I have built several historical data series which highlight some quantitative aspects of the vocational tuition: i.e. its incidence among Italian secondary tuition, the financial aid Italian state gave to this kind of schools, the proportion between day and evening class.
The second pace is to compare this numbers with the industrial production estimates which are recorded in 1871 and 1911 data census. I am going to take the provincial data and to compare them with the number of vocational students and – where this last data is present – vocational graduates. This procedure aims to verify if it is possible to see a relationship between the economic performance of Italian provinces and the human capital of vocational schools. Hence the analysis want to find out how much human qualified capital was demanded by factories and how much this kind of human capital affected Italian economic growth during these years and during the first “big spurt” of the first fifteen years of the XX century.
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During the first half of the 18th Century, Barcelona (Catalonia - Spain) and its surrounding areas where interested in the transformation of the manufacturing process. This came forth following a rich tradition of manufacturing wool and silk which prompted production of Indianine (calico printing). In the case of the Indianine the manufacturing structure changed from individual workshops (typical of pre industrial manufacture) to one consolidated factory in order to follow the new idea of production (wage labour, logistics, phases integration, use of energy, technology and machines). This process rapidly developed due to demand for this new trend and to the increase wealth of the growing European bourgeoisie.
My proposed paper aims to analyze the case study of J.B. Sires y Cia. A manufacture firm established in about 1760 in Barcelona and working till 1812. The manufacture utilizing skilled and unskilled workers faced the changes in the demand during almost 50 years. In particular, tje paper aims to reconstruct the calico printing market trend and the "economic behavior" adopted by the J.B. Sires y Cia. (technology adopted, amount and quality of workers) in order to maintain a certain level of productivity. The manufacture's response to market modification will be considered facing the changes in the geography of the market (the development of an internal market and the weight of the colonial one). The paper will use the microdata set proceeding from a work in progress mainly based on accounts and fiscal data from the J.B. Sires stored in Barcelona's Archivo Historico. (Show less)