The geography of innovation in Italy, 1861–1913: evidence from patent data

Abstract

In this paper we provide a systematic appraisal of the spatial patterns of inventive activity in Italy in the period 1861-1913. Our main source of evidence is a data-set containing all patents granted in Italy in five benchmark years (1864-65, 1881, 1891, 1902, 1911). Our geographical unit of analysis is the province, an administrative district of the time. First, using some simple descriptive statistics, we introduce a characterization of the spatial distribution of patents and of its evolution over time. Second, we perform an econometric exercise in which we assess the connection between different forms of human capital and patent intensity. We are able to establish a robust correlation between literacy and "basic" patent intensity and robust correlation between secondary technical education and scientific and engineering studies and "high quality" patent intensity. Third, we study the connection between patents and industrialization. Our exercise shows that patents exerted a significant role in accounting for the level of industrial production. Interestingly enough, in this context, the role of patents was possibly more relevant than that of the availability of water-power and of the level of real wages (two factors that were pointed out by the previous literature, mostly on the basis of rather impressionistic accounts of the evidence). Our study warrants two main conclusions. First, domestic inventive activities were an important element of the industrialization process, even in a latecomer country such as Italy. Second, at the time of the unification, Northern provinces were characterized by more effective innovation systems. This factor contributes to explain the growing divide in economic performance between the North and the South of the country during the Liberal age. Jel Codes: N73; N93; O33 Acknowledgement: we would like to thank Sara Pecchioli for outstanding research assistance and Michele Mannucci for granting us access to the historical library of Ufficio Tecnico Ing. A. Mannucci s.r.l, Firenze. We are particularly grateful to Gabriele Cappelli and Carlo Ciccarelli for sharing their data with us. We also thank

Market versus endowment: explaining early industrial location in Italy (1871–1911)

“…This contribution represents indeed the first one to have proposed a formal causal model to explain regional patterns of industrial activity; however, the lack of a proper market access measure accounting for provincial GDP and transport costs in the model leads to different conclusions on the role of the home market compared to our results. Nuvolari and Vasta (2017) use the levels of provincial industrial production as dependent variable, finding that patents were connected with technical education and these two variables were determinants of industrial activity. Here regional domestic market potential from Missiaia 2016is included as regressor at provincial level, resulting nonsignificant.…”

“…Market versus endowment: explaining early industrial location… consistent with a broad long-term approach, but of course there is an implicit trade off between temporal comparability and detailed analysis on a more specific period. Measures of industrial performance have also been related to some of the classical hypothesis, for instance by Cappelli (2017) in relation to human and social capital and Nuvolari and Vasta (2017) in relation to secondary schooling and innovation. Finally, the most recent contribution in this direction is the one by Basile and Ciccarelli (2018) who propose a formal model to explain the value added in each sector at provincial level using literacy, energy and market forces as main explanatory variables.…”

Exhibitions, patents, and innovation in the early twentieth century: evidence from the Turin 1911 International Exhibition

“…All the more so, the city of Turin was one the main centres of Italy's industrialization, as the country's expanding industrial sector (and related inventive activity) concentrated in those decades in the "industrial triangle", i.e. the North-Western cities of Genoa, Milan, and Turin itself (Ciccarelli and Fenoaltea 2013;Nuvolari and Vasta 2017). The developing Italian economy was an attractive destination for foreign capital, the presence of which was considerable (involving more than one-eighth of the largest Italian joint-stock companies, and almost one-fifth of their share capital) and pervasive across sectors, though stronger in technology-and capital-intensive ones (Colli 2010, pp.…”

Woe to the vanquished? State, ‘foreign’ banking and financial development in Southern Italy in the nineteenth century

“…While scholars still debate the extent of the North–South divide at the time of unification as measured by socioeconomic indicators (Daniele and Malanima 2011; Vecchi 2011; Ciccarelli and Fenoaltea 2013; Felice and Vasta 2015; Cappelli 2016; Nuvolari and Vasta 2017; Ciccarelli and Weisdorf 2018; Felice 2018, 2019; Federico, Nuvolari and Vasta 2019; Di Martino, Felice and Vasta 2020), financial historians have emphasised the innovative character of Southern finance since the early modern times (Costabile and Neal 2018), its trials during the difficult transition to an Italian national market (Demarco 1958, 1963; Giuffrida 1972–3; De Rosa 1989–92) and the downsides for the South of monetary integration with the North in what was a far cry from an optimal currency area (Foreman-Peck 2006; Chiaruttini 2018; Vicquéry 2018). Southern banking history, in particular, is traditionally presented as a series of bright achievements before unification and, thereafter, of bitter competition with the Piedmontese National Bank ( Banca Nazionale ) – the future Bank of Italy – under the malevolent eye of a national government with Northern sympathies 1 .…”