Engineers, innovative capacity and development in the Americas

Using newly collected national and sub-national data and historical case studies, this paper argues that differences in innovative capacity, captured by the density of engineers at the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, are important to explaining present in come differences, and, in particul...

Full description

Autores:
Maloney, William Francis
Valencia Caicedo, Felipe
Tipo de recurso:
Work document
Fecha de publicación:
2014
Institución:
Universidad de los Andes
Repositorio:
Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/8498
Acceso en línea:
http://hdl.handle.net/1992/8498
Palabra clave:
Development
Engineers
Growth
History
Human capital
Innovative capacity
Technology diffusion
Desarrollo económico - Estados Unidos
Crecimiento económico - Estados Unidos
Estados Unidos - Condiciones económicas
O1, O31, O33, O4, N1
Rights
openAccess
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Description
Summary:Using newly collected national and sub-national data and historical case studies, this paper argues that differences in innovative capacity, captured by the density of engineers at the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, are important to explaining present in come differences, and, in particular, the poor performance of Latin America relative to North America. This remains the case after controlling for literacy, other higher order human capital, such as lawyers, as well as demand side elements that might be confounded with engineering. The analysis then finds that agglomeration, certain geographical fundamentals, and extractive institutions such as slavery affect innovative capacity. However, a large effect associated with being a Spanish colony remains suggesting important inherited factors.