We investigate the long-run historical pattern of R&D-outlays by reviewing aggregate growth rates and historical cases of particular R&D projects, following the historical-institutional approach of Alfred Chandler (1962), Douglass North (1981) and Oliver Williamson (1985). We find that even the...

Until the late nineteenth century, the British alkali industry enjoyed a colossal export market in the United States. Yet, as several scholars have already noted, the highly protectionist Dingley Tariff of 1897 caused a precipitous and irreversible decline in the volume of British alkali exports...