Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- In Memoriam: Kenneth L. Sokoloff
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I HEALTH AND LIVING STANDARDS
- PART II INSTITUTIONS AND SCHOOLING
- 4 The Evolution of Schooling in the Americas, 1800–1925
- 5 Why the United States Led in Education: Lessons from Secondary School Expansion, 1910 to 1940
- 6 The Production of Engineers in New York Colleges and Universities, 1800–1950: Some New Data
- PART III HUMAN CAPITAL OUTLIERS
- PART IV CONSTRAINTS IN LABOR AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
- Index
- References
6 - The Production of Engineers in New York Colleges and Universities, 1800–1950: Some New Data
from PART II - INSTITUTIONS AND SCHOOLING
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- In Memoriam: Kenneth L. Sokoloff
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I HEALTH AND LIVING STANDARDS
- PART II INSTITUTIONS AND SCHOOLING
- 4 The Evolution of Schooling in the Americas, 1800–1925
- 5 Why the United States Led in Education: Lessons from Secondary School Expansion, 1910 to 1940
- 6 The Production of Engineers in New York Colleges and Universities, 1800–1950: Some New Data
- PART III HUMAN CAPITAL OUTLIERS
- PART IV CONSTRAINTS IN LABOR AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
- Index
- References
Summary
The president of a Silicon Valley firm was asked by a possible merger partner how he would evaluate his company. The president replied, “a million dollars for each engineer.”
INTRODUCTION
In his classic work, Modern Economic Growth: Rate Structure and Spread, Simon Kuznets wrote that the modern economic era was characterized by the sustained increase in total product per capita and per worker. The increase was based on a fundamental historical innovation, “the extended application of science to problems of economic production” (Kuznets 1966, 9). By the mid-nineteenth century scientific knowledge was clearly being applied in the fastest growing regions of the globe, but characterizing the role of science in the first decades of sustained economic growth in the late eighteenth and very early nineteenth centuries is problematic. Only a few of the new technologies that were invented and applied in Britain, Belgium, France, and the United States employed contemporary scientific knowledge. In these early decades, if there was a link to science, most frequently it was in the use of a scientific experimental methodology when inventors and innovators tried new ideas and machines.
Yet, when many Western and Central European governments and manufacturing communities were confronted by the surging industrial economy of Great Britain in the first decades of the nineteenth century, it was widely believed that an important means of fortifying their economies was to inaugurate and strengthen institutions that supported applied science.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Human Capital and InstitutionsA Long-Run View, pp. 179 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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