Book Chapter

Ships, shipping, technological change and global economic growth, 1400-1800

  • Richard W. Unger

The major breakthrough in ship design around 1400 creating the full-rigged ship constituted a general purpose technology. It had far-reaching effects on shipping, trade volume, orientation of trade routes, location of production, settlement patterns and many other aspects of life throughout the globe from 1400 to1800. The greater efficiency of the type in a number of uses led to its dissemination, to a limited degree, throughout the world. Spillovers from the success of the design were extensive and included for example a literature on designing and building ships, improvements in navigation and in government practices. Advances in shipbuilding were one of the very few technologies in the period that qualified as a technological advance with massive consequences.

  • Keywords:
  • macroinvention,
  • full-rigged ship,
  • general purpose technology,
  • shipbuilding,
  • spillover,
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Richard W. Unger

University of British Columbia, Canada - ORCID: 0000-0002-8798-0843

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  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 373-393
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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  • Publication Year: 2023
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Ships, shipping, technological change and global economic growth, 1400-1800

Authors

Richard W. Unger

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9.22

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

L’economia della conoscenza: innovazione, produttività e crescita economica nei secoli XIII-XVIII / The knowledge economy: innovation, productivity and economic growth, 13th to 18th century

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

456

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0091-2

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0092-9

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

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