ETD

Archivio digitale delle tesi discusse presso l'Università di Pisa

Tesi etd-11122015-114535


Tipo di tesi
Tesi di laurea magistrale
Autore
PALA, GIOVANNI MARIA
URN
etd-11122015-114535
Titolo
The Historical Foundation of the Industrial Enlightenment: a new index of scientific and technical activities in Europe, 800-1800.
Dipartimento
ECONOMIA E MANAGEMENT
Corso di studi
ECONOMICS
Relatori
relatore Prof. Nuvolari, Alessandro
Parole chiave
  • Talent
  • Industrial Revolution
  • Economic History
  • Industrial Enlightenment
Data inizio appello
01/12/2015
Consultabilità
Completa
Riassunto
This contribution proposes a new index of cultural activities in Europe, for the period 800-1800. In order to test it, a novel dataset is constructed by joining two existing works complemented with an additional set of original data. The index measures the degree of cultural activity of a region at city level by counting the number of high achieving innovators clustering in it. In this way a map of innovation across Europe can be produced and a series of historical hypotheses can be assessed. Emerging properties of persistence and diffusion of talent are observed. A series of regression analyses are implemented to test for alternative theories about the influence of culture. In particular, the so called “Industrial Enlightenment” is put into question. It holds that the ideals stemming from the scientific revolution of the XVII century, European positivism and the political experience of XVIII century's French intellectuals, contributed in a determinant way to the industrial revolution by interacting with the English intellectual and productive system. This view is compared with some alternative theories. The results of the analysis do not allow for a refusal of the cultural hypothesis for the industrial revolution: the role of France, and in particular Paris, as the pulsing hearth of European innovation is confirmed by the data. Moreover, England is more active in the fields of invention than France before and for much of the industrial revolution. Other historical impressions concerning intellectual activities in Europe are confirmed and indicate a good reliability of the index.
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