Property Rights to Technical Knowledge in Premodern Europe, 1300–1800

Abstract

The role of technology in the transition from premodem, Malthusian to modem economies in late 18thand 19th-century Europe is among the major questions in economic history, but it is still poorly understood. In particular, the view that premodern societies experienced low labor productivity and stagnant living standards, and that technological change before ca. 1800 was close to zero due to pervasive guild rent-seeking and poorly specified property rights to knowledge (Douglass C. North, 1981; Joel Mokyr, 2002), is hard to square with the fact that the surge of technological innovation in the 18th century occurred within institutional frameworks not too dissimilar to those of 1300.

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