Preliminary Programme

This paper analyses the social background of German inventors in the mid-19th century (1845-77). We use a new patent data set including information on more than 15,000 patents filed in the states of the German Zollverein, which we have extracted from archival records. The data allows to identify the occupation of patentees. We use this information to group patentees according to their social background, education, and employment status. There are several stylized facts: first, a high share of “upper-class” and “upper-middle-class” inventors, while there are few patents filed by “lower-class” inventors; second, a relatively high share of inventors with university education and their share increased over time; third, a large fraction was self-employed; fourth, significant geographical variation in all these characteristics. In our empirical analysis, we first focus on the whole Zollverein showing that differences in the design of the patent systems partially explain regional differences with regard to the social composition of patentees. Second, we focus on the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony where there were changes in patent laws. (Show less)

Economists stress the leading role that inclusive institutions play among the various factors that foster a country’s economic growth. In this article, we show that it might be misleading to mistake the codification of a formal rule for its effective administrative implementation. As the case of the German state Wuerttemberg demonstrates, a government’s lip service to the principle of equal treatment does not guarantee that the local patent authority refrains from discriminating against foreign patentees by charging comparatively high patent fees. We conclude that the introduction of a stringent and formally fair patent law alone does not guarantee that foreign inventors’ intellectual property rights are protected as well as those of the domestic patentees. (Show less)

This paper investigates sectoral patterns of innovation in Italian industry over the period 1861-1936. Our main source is a dataset comprising all patents granted in Italy in the following benchmark years (1864, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1902, 1911, 1927 and 1936). We match patent data at sectoral level with the dataset on Italian industrial production constructed by Ciccarelli and Fenoaltea (2013) and on industrial labour force constructed by Ciccarelli and Missiaia (2013). Our periodization comprises both the so called Liberal Age (1861-1913) and the Fascist regime period (1922-1943). We study both the sectoral differences concerning the sources of innovation (universities and scientific research, engineers and skilled workforce, learning by doing and by using, and spillover effects) and the organization of innovative activities (independent, small firms, large firms and foreign inventors). Our analysis provides new insights, from the perspective of a latecomer country, on the purported transition between the ‘widening’ (Schumpeter Mark I) and the ‘deepening’ (Schumpeter Mark II) patterns of innovation which has been traditionally ascribed to the unfolding the Second Industrial Revolution. (Show less)