Why Inventions Occurred in Some Countries and Not in Others?

摘要

The reasons why inventions that shaped industrial revolutions, occurred in the UK and in the USA, have been suggested by economic historians. For the first time,we access the determinants of more than a hundred inventions around the world, explaining why they occurred in a given country and why some occurred earlier than others. We confirmthe importance of scale effects and dismiss the importance of education as triggers of inventions. Geographic and genetic distance from the UK and the USA have proven tobe significant in explaining inventions. Both distance from the UK and proximity to the USA seem to have significant effect on the rise of the probability to invent and on theprobability to invent earlier.