(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
"War, what is it good for?": The industrial revolution!
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/qucehw/201812.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"War, what is it good for?": The industrial revolution!

Author

Abstract

Did the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars contribute to the Industrial Revolution? Recent scholarship argues warfare was an important factor in explaining Britain's industrialisation, by encouraging the invention and diffusion of key technologies with military applications. I re-examine this hypothesis by analysing the patenting of military inventions and inventions considered to be economically valuable during the Industrial Revolution. I find war led to a permanent increase in the rate of military and valuable patenting. War likely created a demand for superior military technologies, while increased wartime production led to demands for more valuable technologies, which both stimulated the Industrial Revolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Billington, Stephen D., 2018. ""War, what is it good for?": The industrial revolution!," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2018-12, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/186122/1/1041163207.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sullivan, Richard J., 1989. "England's Age of invention: The acceleration of patents and patentable invention during the industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 424-452, October.
    2. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1984. "Why Was British Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 687-712, September.
    3. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1852," IAST Working Papers 14-07, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    4. Allen,Robert C., 2009. "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521868273, September.
    5. B. Zorina Khan, 2015. "The Impact of War on Resource Allocation: 'Creative Destruction' and the American Civil War," NBER Working Papers 20944, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1852," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 48-63.
    7. Réka Juhász, 2018. "Temporary Protection and Technology Adoption: Evidence from the Napoleonic Blockade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3339-3376, November.
    8. Stephen D Billington & Alan J Hanna, 2021. "That’s classified! Inventing a new patent taxonomy [Text matching to measure patent similarity]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(3), pages 678-705.
    9. Nuvolari, Alessandro & Tartari, Valentina, 2011. "Bennet Woodcroft and the value of English patents, 1617-1841," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 97-115, January.
    10. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    11. W. Walker Hanlon, 2015. "Necessity Is the Mother of Invention: Input Supplies and Directed Technical Change," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 67-100, January.
    12. Bottomley,Sean, 2014. "The British Patent System during the Industrial Revolution 1700–1852," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107058293, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nuvolari, Alessandro & Tartari, Valentina & Tranchero, Matteo, 2021. "Patterns of innovation during the Industrial Revolution: A reappraisal using a composite indicator of patent quality," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Billington, Stephen D., 2021. "What explains patenting behaviour during Britain’s Industrial Revolution?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Stephen D Billington & Alan J Hanna, 2021. "That’s classified! Inventing a new patent taxonomy [Text matching to measure patent similarity]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(3), pages 678-705.
    4. Alexander Donges & Felix Selgert, 2019. "Technology transfer via foreign patents in Germany, 1843–77," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(1), pages 182-208, February.
    5. Billington, Stephen D., 2018. "Patent costs and the value of inventions: Explaining patenting behaviour between England, Ireland and Scotland, 1617-1852," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2018-10, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    6. Billington, Stephen D. & Lane, Joe, 2023. ""Clause and effect": Invention and state intervention during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars," QUCEH Working Paper Series 23-05, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    7. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1852," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 48-63.
    8. Matthew Gibbons & Les Oxley, 2017. "New Perspectives on Patenting Activity in New Zealand 1860-1899," Working Papers in Economics 17/04, University of Waikato.
    9. Michael J. Andrews, 2020. "Local Effects of Land Grant Colleges on Agricultural Innovation and Output," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture, pages 139-175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Alessandro Nuvolari & Valentina Tartari, 2009. "Mr Woodcroft and the value of English patents of invention, 1617-1852," Working Papers 9015, Economic History Society.
    11. Aaron Graham, 2020. "Patents and invention in Jamaica and the British Atlantic before 1857," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 940-963, November.
    12. David Andersson & Mounir Karadja & Erik Prawitz, 2022. "Mass Migration and Technological Change," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(5), pages 1859-1896.
    13. Nicholas Crafts, 2021. "Understanding productivity growth in the industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(2), pages 309-338, May.
    14. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1852," IAST Working Papers 14-07, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    15. Nuvolari, Alessandro & Tartari, Valentina, 2011. "Bennet Woodcroft and the value of English patents, 1617-1841," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 97-115, January.
    16. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    17. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2011. "Is Anonymity the Missing Link Between Commercial and Industrial Revolution?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 974, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    18. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2017. "Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 379-394.
    19. Alberto Galasso & Mark Schankerman, 2015. "Patent Rights, Innovation and Firm Exit," NBER Working Papers 21769, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Patrick K. O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2023. "Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694–1844," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 305-329, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Industrial Revolution; Patents; War;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N74 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Europe: 1913-
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chqubuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.