Mental Capital — Transfers of Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Europe

On the historical continuity of the process of economic growth

“…As documented in , Ambramovitz (1989) tially lower productivity levels than did the US, but the catch-up variable is insignificant for this period, as shown in section 3. This result confirms the view of Ambramovitz (1989) and Inkster (1990) that catching up requires adequate preconditions in terms of institutions and cultures to be effective. Moreover, countries may grow differently by choosing specific technological trajectories, as shown for instance by Chandler (1990) in his description and comparison of economic growth in the UK and the US from 1870 to 1948.…”

“…A hint of an explanation may be found in the relevance of mutual technological spillovers analysed in a different historical context by Inkster (1990). According to this view the US economy may have profited from feedback effects related to the catch up in other countries.…”

“…The introduction of a catch-up variable gives rise to additional observations. First, as argued by Inkster (1990), who supplied ample historical evidence for his view, the international transfer of knowledge is an ongoing process with countries exchanging ideas, hardware and skilled people on a bilateral base. If countries differ substantially in their level of development, transfers from "leaders" to "latecomers" may dominate, thus giving rise to catch up, which can be identified by…”

“…In addition, the social and economic environment of the receiver should be similar to that of the source for the technology transfer to be fully "indigenised" and therefore successful (e.g. Ambramovitz 1989;Inkster, 1990). Adding a logarithmic catch-up variable and making the necessary transformations, Dowrick and Nguyen (1989) end up with the estimation equation where µ denotes a random error term and the positive defined coefficients a 0 , a 1 , a 2 and a 3 depend on the parameters of the original production function, a coefficient introduced to account for the impact of the catch-up variable, and the length of the time period (T) for which growth rates are defined.…”

On the Historical Continuity of the Process of Economic Growth

“…In addition, the social and economic environment of the receiver should be similar to that of the source for the technology transfer to be fully "indigenised" and therefore successful (e.g. Ambramovitz 1989; Inkster, 1990). Adding a logarithmic catch-up variable and making the necessary transformations, Dowrick and Nguyen (1989) end up with the estimation equation where µ denotes a random error term and the positive defined coefficients a 0 , a 1 , a 2 and a 3 depend on the parameters of the original production function, a coefficient introduced to account for the impact of the catch-up variable, and the length of the time period (T) for which growth rates are defined.…”