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1 - The Contribution Good as the Foundation of the Industrial Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2021

By
Terence Kealey  and
Martin Ricketts
Edited by
Erwin Dekker  and
Pavel Kuchař
Erwin Dekker
Affiliation:
Mercatus Center, George Mason University, Virginia
Pavel Kuchař
Affiliation:
King's College London
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Summary

The Industrial Revolution cannot readily be modelled if research is treated as a public, private or club good. Recent work on the knowledge commons and on ‘network’ and ‘anti-rival’ goods has offered more promising perspectives, but we have proposed that research is most suitably considered as a novel good, namely a ‘contribution good.’ A contribution good is a non-depletable good jointly available only to those who have contributed to its creation. Here we show that the Industrial Revolution, and some of the institutional developments that accompanied it, conform well with a contribution good model of technical change.

Keywords

Contribution GoodsIndustrial RevolutionScientific RevolutionScientific SocietiesEconomic GrowthEconomies of Scale.
Type
Chapter
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Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons , pp. 19 - 57
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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