In this paper we focus on education as a private decision to invest in ‘human capital’ and the estimation of the rate of return to that private investment. While the literature is replete with studies that estimate the rate of return using regression methods where the estimated return is...

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to look at the worldwide relevance of high-value patents granted in Germany between the enactment of the first nationwide German patent law in 1877 and 1932. This patent act enabled both, national and foreign patentees to reap the fruits of their intellectual...

For researchers studying the economic development of nations, the availability of human capital data is crucial. Economists making efforts to examine the impact of human resources on economic development before the end of World War II often face massive problems. Methods of collecting data,...

This Ph.D. dissertation studies innovation in Germany from 1877 to 1914. The German patents that had survived for at least ten years are used as a proxy of innovation. The introduction briefly outlines the issues to be investigated. The first chapter examines the successive waves of...