The Rise of the Engineer
Inventing the Professional Inventor During the Industrial Revolution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9710252 |
|---|---|
| Authors | W Walker Hanlon (0000-0002-2753-1085, Northwestern University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 135 |
| Issue | 670 |
| Pages | 1749-1781 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ej/ueaf023 |
| OpenAlex | W4409352435 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 44 |
How did the Industrial Revolution generate sustained economic growth? One hypothesis is that the innovation system changed. This paper provides direct quantitative evidence documenting this fundamental change in the innovation system: the emergence of a new type of inventor, the professional engineer. Using rich patent, biographical and other data, I document the emergence of the engineering profession starting in the late eighteenth century and show that engineers differed from older types of inventors in important ways. These findings improve our understanding of the Industrial Revolution and provide perspective for evaluating more recent changes in the innovation system
Economics · Engineering ethics · Industrial Revolution · Management · Manufacturing engineering · Political science · Engineering · Engineering Education and Curriculum Development · Law · Mechatronics Education and Applications
Inventing the Industrial Revolution
The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective
The Rise of the Western World
Human Capital and Industrialization
Malthus to Solow
The Allocation of Talent
How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs
The Burden of Knowledge and the “Death of the Renaissance Man”
The Rise of Europe
Population, Technology, and Growth
Human capital, knowledge and economic development
Endogenous Technological Change
The Mechanics of the Industrial Revolution
Constitutions and Commitment
The Revolution of Ideas
Patterns of innovation during the Industrial Revolution
England's “Age of invention”
Bennet Woodcroft and the value of English patents, 1617–1841
Science, Invention and Economic Growth
The Wheels of Change
Coal and the European Industrial Revolution
Prizes, patents and the search for longitude
Connecting the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions
The Industrial Revolution in Miniature
British-French Technology Transfer from the Revolution to Louis Philippe (1791-1844)
Evaluating inventive activity
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |