Entrepreneurs and innovation in Lombardy (1796-1859)

ABSTRACT OF THE PAPER - The paper aims to emphasize the elements of progress of the first nineteenth-century Lombard economy which could explain its further growth: it’s certainly not by chance that at the end of the 19th century and all along the 20th century Lombardy will be «at the helm of Italian industrialization». The region had a flourishing agriculture and an expanding manufacturing sector scattered within the countryside, rooted in several small towns, in the suburb and city of Milan. What is more, the area was deeply embedded in international trade networks and was trying to follow the European economic progress. From this point of view, the interaction between entrepreneurs and innovation would deserve a deeper and wider historical analysis. In fact, technological and institutional change could be considered the basic keys to social evolution and economic growth and entrepreneurs the agents and channels of innovation inside the economy (North 1990). The objective of the paper is to deal with both these two issues – technological and institutional innovation - focusing on the productive entrepreneurial activity (creation, recognition, utilization of positive opportunities), i.e. on local and foreign entrepreneurs as dynamic actors and agents of innovation and economic development. The first part of the work will try to enlighten the role played by international networks, foreign technicians and local entrepreneurs in the technological innovation process (that in turn involves new form of organizations and exploitation of new markets). Moreover, the focus will be on institutional changes and particularly on the legacy of the Napoleonic reforms (commercial and civil codes, trade courts, mortgage law, sale of public properties) which shaped a quite modern institutional and regulatory framework, for the most part conserved by the Austrian government after 1815.