Rails of Progress? Exploring the nexus between railroad access and innovation in Italy (19th-20th centuries)
研究了1861-1936年意大利铁路建设对专利活动的影响，发现铁路促进了独立发明人参与，但创新质量较低，且效果集中在早期建设阶段。
• Railroads construction in Italy during the period 1855–1936 fostered a “democratization of invention”, increasing access to the patent system for independent inventors in peripheral areas, particularly in the Centre-North of the country. • The construction of railroads during Italy's Liberal Age led to a 4.3 % annual increase in patenting, with significant impact for the railroads constructed during the phase of the Destra storica (1861–1878). It is worth noting that overall national patenting growth between 1861 and 1911, which includes the innovation hotspots of Genoa, Turin, and Milan, was 7.5 per cent. • While railroads construction in Italy during the period 1855–1936 stimulated inventive activities, the overall quality of the resulting innovations remained rather low, constrained by underdeveloped human capital, entrepreneurship, and financial resources. This paper provides new evidence on the nexus between railroads and inventive activities in Italy in the period 1861–1936. We develop two new georeferenced datasets on railroad stations and patents covering about 8,000 municipalities. By adopting a staggered difference in differences identification strategy, we show that the impact of railroad construction on innovation is noticeable for the first wave of construction of the period of the Destra storica (1861–1878), when the network was expanded following a state building strategy. However, these effects became noticeable only after two decades and concern mostly independent inventors and low-quality patents. Finally, we show that railroad access fostered innovation, particularly in locations with more advanced pre-existing capabilities.