Abstract
We study the role of higher education in promoting the transition to industrial capitalism where modern research universities first developed: nineteenth century Germany. We construct novel microdata on invention, scientific activity, and manufacturing across virtually all towns in Germany between 1760 and 1900. Invention, scientific activity, and manufacturing developed similarly in towns nearer to and farther from universities in the 1700s, and then shifted towards universities and accelerated in the early 1800s. After 1800, we find a significant positive shift in the probability that inventors were educated or employed at universities. Manufacturing in which invention was university-intensive located nearer to universities. These shifts in invention and manufacturing reflected changes in German universities, politics, and culture that were precipitated by the French Revolution and Napoleonic invasion of the early 1800s.
Invited by: Research seminar Team
Local Organizer: Massimiliano Onorato