The Location of Invention and Technical Change: Industrial Development in the U.S.

该项目的目的是通过研究1870年至1929年间美国制造业发明的位置模式，加深对技术变革的理解，这是一个国家产品市场一体化的时期，也是技术和产业结构发生根本性变化的时期。发明的位置问题将从这个术语的两种不同意义上进行探讨。首先，建立一段时间内专利地理分布的基本定量记录，更好地了解发明活动地理聚集现象的基础和普遍程度。尽管学者和政策制定者对本地外部性在发明中的重要性非常感兴趣，也有许多关于硅谷等案例的轶事参考，但迄今为止，对这一主题的系统实证调查有限。其次，该研究将分析发明活动在多大程度上位于实际使用该技术的公司。人们通常认为发明是发生在企业内部的一种活动，但在不同时期，企业从外部供应商那里购买或许可了它们的大部分技术。这项研究很重要，因为它将为创新过程和新技术的传播提供新的视角。

The purpose of this project is to develop a deeper understanding of technical change by examining the patterns in the location of invention in the U.S. manufacturing sector between 1870 and 1929, a period of integration of national product markets as well as of radical changes in technology and in industrial structure. The issue of the location of invention will be explored in two different senses of the term. First, the basic quantitative record of the geographic distribution of patenting over the period, as well as a better understanding of the basis for, and prevalence of, the phenomenon of geographic clustering in inventive activity will be established. Although there has been much interest by scholars and policy makers in the importance of local externalities in invention, and many anecdotal references to cases such as Silicon Valley, there has to date been only limited systematic empirical investigation of the subject. Second, the study will analyze the extent to which inventive activity was located within the firms that actually used the technology. It is conventional to think of invention as an activity that occurs within the boundaries of the firms, but at various times firms have bought or licensed much of their technology from outside suppliers. This research is important because it will shed new light on the processes of innovation and the diffusion of new technology.