IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v84y2024i4p1175-1207_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inventors among the “Impoverished Sophisticate”

Author

Listed:
  • Berger, Thor
  • Prawitz, Erik

Abstract

This paper examines the identity and origins of Swedish inventors prior to WWI, drawing on the universe of patent records linked to census data. We document that the rise of innovation during Sweden’s industrialization can largely be attributed to a small industrial elite belonging to the upper-tail of the economic, educational, and social status distribution. Analyzing children’s opportunities to become inventors, we show that inventors were disproportionately drawn from privileged family backgrounds. However, innovation was a path to upward mobility for the middle- and working-class children that managed to overcome the barriers to entry.

Suggested Citation

  • Berger, Thor & Prawitz, Erik, 2024. "Inventors among the “Impoverished Sophisticate”," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(4), pages 1175-1207, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:84:y:2024:i:4:p:1175-1207_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050724000433/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin F. Jones, 2009. "The Burden of Knowledge and the "Death of the Renaissance Man": Is Innovation Getting Harder?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 283-317.
    2. 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.
    3. Philippe Aghion & Ufuk Akcigit & Ari Hyytinen & Otto Toivanen, 2017. "The social origins of inventors," CEP Discussion Papers dp1522, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Berger, Thor & Engzell, Per & Eriksson, Björn & Molinder, Jakob, 2023. "Social Mobility in Sweden before the Welfare State," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 431-463, June.
    5. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas, 2017. "Immigration and the Rise of American Ingenuity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 327-331, May.
    6. Schankerman, Mark & Pakes, Ariel, 1986. "Estimates of the Value of Patent Rights in European Countries during the Post-1950 Period," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(384), pages 1052-1076, December.
    7. Mokyr, Joel, 1992. "The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195074772.
    8. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2013. "Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1109-1137, June.
    9. Sokoloff, Kenneth L. & Khan, B. Zorina, 1990. "The Democratization of Invention During Early Industrialization: Evidence from the United States, 1790–1846," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 363-378, June.
    10. Philippe Aghion & Ufuk Akcigit & Antonin Bergeaud & Richard Blundell & David Hemous, 2019. "Innovation and Top Income Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 1-45.
    11. Bj�rn L. Basberg, 2015. "Amateur or professional? A new look at nineteenth-century patentees in Norway," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(1), pages 24-44, March.
    12. repec:fth:harver:1473 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Zorina Khan & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 2004. "Institutions and Democratic Invention in 19th-Century America: Evidence from "Great Inventors," 1790-1930," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 395-401, May.
    14. Josh Lerner, 2002. "Patent Protection and Innovation Over 150 Years," NBER Working Papers 8977, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Mara P. Squicciarini & Nico Voigtländer, 2015. "Human Capital and Industrialization: Evidence from the Age of Enlightenment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1825-1883.
    16. Josh Lerner, 2002. "150 Years of Patent Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 221-225, May.
    17. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2013. "Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 2041-2049, August.
    18. Celik, Murat Alp, 2023. "Does the Cream Always Rise to the Top? The Misallocation of Talent in Innovation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 105-128.
    19. Machlup, Fritz & Penrose, Edith, 1950. "The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, May.
    20. B. Zorina Khan, 2005. "The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790–1920," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number khan05-1.
    21. Sandberg, Lars G., 1979. "The Case of the Impoverished Sophisticate: Human Capital and Swedish Economic Growth before World War I," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 225-241, March.
    22. Alessandro Nuvolari & Michelangelo Vasta, 2015. "Independent invention in Italy during the Liberal Age, 1861–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 858-886, August.
    23. 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.
    24. Andersson David E. & Tell Fredrik, 2019. "From Fighting Monopolies to Promoting Industry: Patent Laws and Innovation in Sweden 1819–1914," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 60(1), pages 123-156, May.
    25. Sean Bottomley, 2019. "The returns to invention during the British industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(2), pages 510-530, May.
    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. 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.
    2. Grönqvist, Charlotta, 2009. "Empirical studies on the private value of Finnish patents," Bank of Finland Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, volume 0, number sm2009_041, July.
    3. Alessandro Nuvolari & Michelangelo Vasta, 2015. "Independent invention in Italy during the Liberal Age, 1861–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 858-886, August.
    4. Donges, Alexander & Selgert, Felix, 2019. "The Consequences of Radical Patent-Regime Change," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203662, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle H. & Streb, Jochen, 2018. "Discrimination against Foreigners. The Wuerttemberg Patent Law in Administrative Practice," Working Papers 7, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    6. Eric Budish & Benjamin Roin & Heidi Williams, 2013. "Do fixed patent terms distort innovation? Evidence from cancer clinical trials," Discussion Papers 13-001, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Claude DIEBOLT & Karine PELLIER, 2018. "Patents in the Long Run: Theory, History and Statistics," Working Papers of BETA 2018-20, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    8. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas, 2017. "The Rise of American Ingenuity: Innovation and Inventors of the Golden Age," NBER Working Papers 23047, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ran Abramitzky, 2015. "Economics and the Modern Economic Historian," NBER Working Papers 21636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. 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).
    11. Dario Diodato & Andrea Morrison & Sergio Petralia, 2022. "Migration and invention in the Age of Mass Migration [Immigration in American economic history]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 477-498.
    12. Nicholas, Tom, 2011. "Cheaper patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 325-339, March.
    13. David Andersson & Thor Berger & Erik Prawitz, 2023. "Making a Market: Infrastructure, Integration, and the Rise of Innovation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 258-274, March.
    14. Saiz, Patricio & Amengual, Rafael, 2016. "Knowledge Disclosure, Patent Management, and the Four-Stroke Engine Business," Working Papers in Economic History 2016/02, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History).
    15. Chen, Qiang, 2008. "The effect of patent laws on invention rates: Evidence from cross-country panels," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 694-704, December.
    16. Liam Brunt & Josh Lerner & Tom Nicholas, 2012. "Inducement Prizes and Innovation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 657-696, December.
    17. Eric Budish & Benjamin N. Roin & Heidi Williams, 2015. "Do Firms Underinvest in Long-Term Research? Evidence from Cancer Clinical Trials," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2044-2085, July.
    18. Patricio Sáiz & Rubén Amengual, 2018. "Do patents enable disclosure? Strategic innovation management of the four-stroke engine," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(6), pages 975-997.
    19. Claude Diebolt & Karine Pellier, 2022. "Patents in the Long Run : Theory, History and Statistics," Working Papers hal-02929514, HAL.
    20. Nancy Gallini, 2017. "Do patents work? Thickets, trolls and antibiotic resistance," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 893-926, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    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:cup:jechis:v:84:y:2024:i:4:p:1175-1207_7. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    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.