State Capacity and American Technology: Evidence from the Nineteenth Century
研究了19世纪美国邮局数量（作为国家能力的代理指标）与专利活动之间的关联，发现两者存在强相关，表明国家能力对美国创新有重要影响。
Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Economic Growth compellingly shows how technical innovation, stimulated by the country's institutions, has radically improved the living standards of the citizens of the US. We conduct an empirical investigation of the impact of the capacity of the US state, as proxied by the presence of post offices, on innovation. We show that there is a strong association between the number of post offices in a county and patenting activity. Our evidence suggests that part of story of US innovation is the capacity and reach of the US state.