Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/268948 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
QUCEH Working Paper Series No. 23-05
Publisher: 
Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast
Abstract: 
Did the outbreak of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars influence technical change during the Industrial Revolution? We address this question by investigating an instance of state intervention into the market for inventions from 1793-1820: the introduction of a new proviso into British patents compelling inventors to supply the military, and also attracting military inventions from outside the patent system. We present new patent data alongside previously unused archival evidence to argue that the state's intervention helped direct technical change in Britain. Our evidence provides additional support for the military-demand-induced hypothesis as a credible explanation for Britain's ongoing industrialisation.
Subjects: 
Industrial Revolution
Institutions
Invention
Patents
JEL: 
N43
N73
O31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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