TY  - JOUR
AU  - Sokoloff,Kenneth L.
TI  - Inventive Activity in Early Industrial America:  Evidence From Patent Records, 1790 - 1846
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2707
PY  - 1988
Y2  - September 1988
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2707
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2707.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kenneth L. Sokoloff
Department of Economics
UCLA
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA  90095-1477
Tel: 310/825-4249
Fax: 310/825-9528
E-Mail: N/A user is deceased
AB  - A sample of patent records from the United States between 1790 and 1846 is employed to study the patterns in inventive activity. Patenting was pro-cyclical, and yet began to grow rapidly with the interruptions in foreign trade that preceded the War of 1812. A strong association between patenting and proximity to navigable waterways is also demonstrated. Although the importance of specific mechanisms remains unclear, both the temporal and cross-sectional evidence imply that inventive activity was positively related to the growth of markets during early industrialization.
ER  -