A copy of this work was available on the public web and has been preserved in the Wayback Machine. The capture dates from 2021; you can also visit the original URL.
The file type is application/pdf.
Dissertation Executive Summary: Fuel of Interest and Fire of Genius: Essays on the Economic History of Innovation
[article]
2021
Preserved Fulltext
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
doi:10.13016/m2o2kn-sxjb
fatcat:75qx6zekf5hwbmo32wjzwzhj74