Innovation New Jersey
  • Home
  • Our Coalition
    • Contact Us
  • News
  • Resources
    • State Supports
    • Federal Supports
    • Higher Ed Supports
  • Join Us

Innovation News

Everything Innovation. Everything New Jersey.
Follow us and stay connected.

Harvard Business Review: When America Was Most Innovative, and Why

3/10/2017

0 Comments

 
Boston, MA — Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby and Tom Nicholas report in the Harvard Business Review report:
 
The competitiveness of the U.S. economy depends on technological progress, but recent data suggests that innovation is getting harder and the pace of growth is slowing down.  A major challenge in business and policy spheres is to understand the environments that are most conducive to innovation.
 
One way to do that is to look to history.  In our research we focused on the golden age of invention: the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when America became the world’s preeminent industrial nation.
 
The golden age is associated with some of America’s leading technology pioneers, such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla in electrical illumination and Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray in telephony. 
​Our analysis goes beyond these well-known individuals.  We built a systematic data set that contains millions of patented inventions and millions of individuals in Federal Censuses from 1880 to 1940. We also linked patent data to state- and country-level information.
 
By analyzing this data, we were able to shed light on why the U.S. was so innovative.
 
The context for technological development was very different a century ago. For instance, in 1880 most inventive activity was the result of inventors operating outside the boundaries of firms.
 
Research laboratories, such as the famous one opened, in 1876, by Thomas Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey, were rare.
 
From the middle of the 20th century, however, the modern corporation started to dominate patenting. By 2000 almost 80% of patents were assigned to inventors associated with firms.
 
Nevertheless, the impact of innovation on economic growth was typically large.
 
The chart below illustrates a strong relationship between patenting activity and GDP per capita at the state level. It predicts that an innovative state like Massachusetts, which from 1900 to 2000 had four times as many patents as a less innovative state, like Wyoming, would become 30% richer in terms of GDP per capita by 2000.
 
Innovation was more prevalent in some areas than others. The map below shows regions that today are declining, such as the Rust Belt, used to be innovation hotspots during the golden age.
 
Our research finds that innovation flourished in densely populated areas where people could interact with one another, where capital markets to finance innovation were strong, and where inventors had access to well-connected markets.
 
States with a legacy of slavery were considerably less innovative, and religion had a negative effect, too, though to a lesser degree.
 
Places that were economically and socially open to disruptive new ideas tended to be more innovative, and they subsequently grew faster.
 
For the full report, click here.
 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Do not miss a single innovative moment and sign up for our newsletter!
    Weekly updates


    Categories

    All
    3D Printing
    Academia
    Acquisitions
    Aerospace
    Agriculture
    AIDS
    Algae
    Alumni
    Animals
    Architecture
    Astrophysics
    Autism
    Awards
    Big Data
    Bioethics
    Biofuel
    Biomedical
    BioNJ
    Bioterrorism
    Bit Coins
    Brain Health
    Business
    Camden
    Cancer
    CCollege
    Cellular
    Centenary
    Chemistry
    ChooseNJ
    Climate Change
    Clinical Trials
    Cloud Tech
    Collaboration
    Computing
    Congress
    Coriell
    Council On Innovation
    Crowdfunding
    Cybersecurity
    DARPA
    Defense
    Degree
    Dementia
    Dental Health
    DOC
    DOD
    DOE
    Drew
    Drones
    Drug Creation
    Einstein's Alley
    Electricity
    Energy
    Engineering
    Entrepreneurship
    Environmental
    FAA
    Fairleigh Dickinson
    FDA
    Federal Budget
    Federal Government
    Federal Labs
    Federal Program
    Finance
    Food Science
    Fort Monmouth
    Fuel Cells
    Funding
    Genome
    Geography
    Geology
    Global Competition
    Google
    Governor Christie
    Grant
    Hackensack
    HackensackUMC
    Health Care
    Healthcare
    HHS
    HINJ
    Hospitals
    Immigration
    Incubator
    Infrastructure
    International
    Internet
    Investor
    IoT
    IP
    IT
    Jobs
    Johnson & Johnson
    K-12
    Kean
    Kessler
    Legislation
    Logistics
    Manufacturing
    Medical Devices
    Med School
    Mental Health
    Mentor
    Microorganisms
    Molecular Biology
    Montclair
    NAS
    Neuroscience
    Newark
    New Jersey
    NIFA
    NIH
    NIST
    NJBDA
    NJBIA
    NJ Chemistry Council
    NJCU
    NJDOLWD
    NJEDA
    NJEDge
    NJHF
    NJII
    NJIT
    NJMEP
    NJPAC
    NJPRO
    NJTC
    Nonprofit
    NSF
    OpEd
    Open Data
    OSHE
    OSTP
    Parasite
    Patents
    Paterson
    Patients
    Perth Amboy
    Pharma
    POTUS
    PPPL
    Princeton
    Prosthetics
    Ranking
    Rare Disease
    R&D Council
    Report
    Resiliency
    Rider
    Robotics
    Rowan
    Rutgers
    SBA
    Seton Hall
    Siemens
    Smart Car
    Smart Cities
    Software
    Solar
    Space
    SSTI
    Startup
    State Government
    STEM
    Stevens
    Stockton
    Subatomic
    Supports
    Sustainability
    Taxes
    TCNJ
    Teachers
    Telecom
    Therapy
    Thermodynamics
    Transportation
    Undergraduate
    USEDA
    Verizon
    Video Game
    Virtual Reality
    Water
    WHO
    William Paterson
    Women In STEM
    Workforce Development

Home   Coalition   News   Resources   Events   Join Us
Picture
Innovation New Jersey Coalition
10 West Lafayette Street
Trenton, NJ 08608
732-729-9619