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

这个项目的目的是通过研究1870年至1929年期间美国制造业发明地点的模式，加深对技术变化的理解，这段时期是全国产品市场的一体化时期，以及技术和产业结构的根本性变化。发明所在地的问题将从这一术语的两种不同意义上进行探讨。首先，将建立专利在这一时期的地理分布的基本量化记录，以及更好地理解发明活动中地理聚集现象的基础和普遍存在的情况。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，也有许多轶事提到硅谷等案例，但迄今为止，对这一主题的系统性实证调查有限。其次，这项研究将分析发明活动在实际使用该技术的公司中所处的程度。人们通常认为发明是发生在公司范围内的一种活动，但在不同的时期，公司从外部供应商那里购买或许可了大部分技术。这项研究很重要，因为它将为创新和新技术的传播过程提供新的线索。

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.