Crossover Inventions and Knowledge Diffusion of General Purpose Technologies: Evidence from the Electrical Technology

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: McGill University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050710000604
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 744-764
• 关键词: growth; steam

摘要

Scholars have long noted the significant impact of general purpose technologies (GPTs) on the economy, However, limited attention has been paid to exploring how they are employed to generate inventions in downstream sectors (crossover inventions), and what factors may facilitate such diffusion. In a study of the introduction of electrical technology in the late-nineteenth-century. United States, we find that knowledge spillovers between industries had little influence on the geography of crossover inventions as well as the speed and productivity of crossover inventors, Instead, human capital and an environment promoting inventions in general were more important.