Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • May 2013
  • Article
  • International Economic Review

Hybrid Innovation in Meiji Japan

By: Tom Nicholas
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Japan's hybrid innovation system during the Meiji era of technological modernization provides a useful laboratory for examining the effectiveness of complementary mechanisms to patents. Patents were introduced in 1885, and by 1911, 1.2 million mostly non-pecuniary prizes were awarded at 8,503 competitions. Prizes provided a strong boost to patent outcomes, especially in less developed prefectures, and they also induced large spillovers of technical knowledge in prefectures adjacent to those with prizes, relative to distant control prefectures without prizes. Linking competition expenditures with the expected market value of patents induced by the prizes permits a cost-benefit assessment of the prize competitions to be made.

Keywords

Prizes; Technological Innovation; System; Patents; Knowledge; Value; Cost vs Benefits; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Performance Effectiveness; Japan

Citation

Nicholas, Tom. "Hybrid Innovation in Meiji Japan." International Economic Review 54, no. 2 (May 2013): 575–600.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Tom Nicholas

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • February 2022
    • Quarterly Journal of Economics

    Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century

    By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas and Stefanie Stantcheva
    • January 2022 (Revised March 2022)
    • Faculty Research

    Chinese Restriction, Violence, and Exclusion in the United States

    By: Tom Nicholas, Boyang Han and Tomas Rosales
    • Business History Review

    How History Shaped the Innovator's Dilemma

    By: Tom Nicholas
More from the Author
  • Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas and Stefanie Stantcheva
  • Chinese Restriction, Violence, and Exclusion in the United States By: Tom Nicholas, Boyang Han and Tomas Rosales
  • How History Shaped the Innovator's Dilemma By: Tom Nicholas
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College