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Julius Koschnick

@juliuskoschnick.bsky.social

1K followers 210 following 72 posts

Assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark. Economic history. Research topics: Long-run growth, the knowledge economy, education, and innovation

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Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Mar 24

I’m happy to announce that my JMP🚨🚨Teacher-directed change: The case of the English Scientific Revolution” is now out as a working paper. Finalising the draft has been a lot of work. So, very happy to share this. For lots of history, new micro-data &natural experiments, read on ->->->

A student asking himself whether he should adopt the ideas of a traditional teacher or one working on the Scientific Revolution

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Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Economic societies from the 18th century were the first type of knowledge sharing societies that focused on useful and practical technical knowledge. We document that they left a lasting fingerprint on the geography of innovation.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Our takeaway: Accessing information can be difficult – especially in the past. Knowledge sharing institutions can be important means to lower the cost of accessing knowledge and can contribute to innovation.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Economic societies lowered the costs of accessing information on useful knowledge and created persistent networks that influenced the direction of innovation 100 years after their foundation.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Overall, we find that knowledge sharing societies were an important institution that transformed the geography of innovation in the long run.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

We find strong and significant effects, approx. comparable to the connectivity effects of railways.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Additionally, we argue that economic societies created persistent networks of innovations. For this, we apply a gravity-type-model to estimate whether common membership in economic societies was associated with patenting in similar classes in the 19thcentury.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

As an additional channel, we investigate the involvement of economic societies in the foundation of vocational schools. We show that through vocational schooling, economic societies further contributed to higher innovation by raising the local stock of human capital.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

We argue that through agglomeration economics these manufacturing foundations would have had a lasting impact on the geography of innovation.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

In a difference-in-differences setting, we show that the foundation of the economic society there was associated with higher manufacturing foundations, especially in textiles.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

First, we produce evidence for the country of Saxony and its economic society relying on contemporary population census and manufacturing data from the 18th century.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

We find that increasing the local number of members in economic societies by 100% led to a ca. 25% increase in local patenting in 1877-1914 and local exhibits at the Vienna World Fair in 1873. This is a striking relationship over ca. 100 years. What was the mechanism?

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

We show that the local presence of society members is a strong predictor for patents and exhibits in the 19th century. We further conduct various measures to mitigate endogeneity, incl. an IV strategy, testing for pre-trends and assigning placebo society seats.

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Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

So, did these societies have an actual impact on long-run innovation? In this paper, we have collected and geocoded 3302 members of 15 economic societies in the German lands.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

The societies further published their own journals where they collected articles from their members on technical innovations and empirical observations and they announced their own prize competitions.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

The members of economic societies were not university employed knowledge elites, but common merchants, bureaucrats, teachers, or landowners. They met in the societies’ headquarters to discuss practical, useful knowledge, that was directly relevant to improving the local economy.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

They were founded by their members to overcome the challenge of accessing and organizing knowledge. They strictly focused on useful knowledge, i.e. not on the high science of the earlier academies, but on practical technical innovations that could help the local economy.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

The eighteenth century witnessed an increase in the production of ideas, both scientific and technical. Yet, for many potential entrepreneurs, accessing the stock of knowledge was difficult. This is where economic societies come in.

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Now back to the thread: What were these knowledge sharing societies? What was happening in the eighteenth century?

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

First: Link to paper: doi.org/10.1093/ej/u... Also, we’ve generated a NotebookLM podcast-summary of the paper. It’s a light-hearted but informative take on the paper: notebooklm.google.com/notebook/636...

https://t.co/w3KNIHBe1GWe’ve

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

Our paper with @fcinnio.bsky.social @hornungerik.bsky.social “Flow of ideas: Economic societies and the rise of useful knowledge” is out in print
@theeconjournal.bsky.social 🚨🚨🚨

In it, we investigate the effect of knowledge sharing societies from the 18th century on long-run innovation. Read on ->

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Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jun 21

Course information and sign-up here: sdu.dk/en/forskning... (sign-up at bottom of the page)

sdu.dk

Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jun 21

11-22 August 2025 - organized by @sdueconhist.bsky.social

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Julius Koschnick @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social · Jun 21

🚨Only 10 days left to sign-up to our summer school in Odense on historical economics. Highlights: Keynote lectures by Christopher Meissner on the global economy in the past. Further expect courses on project design, ML methods for data processing, and the recent DiD literature

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Reposted by Julius Koschnick

Christian Vedel @christianvedel.bsky.social · Jun 19

A true pleasure visiting the @camunicampop.bsky.social group to discuss my research on the effect of first nature Geography on Economic Development. (1/3)

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Reposted by Julius Koschnick

Gregori Galofré-Vilà @gregorigv.bsky.social · Jun 12

Then @juliuskoschnick.bsky.social has presented "Did a feedback mechanism between propositional and prescriptive knowledge create modern growth?" #past #history #knowledge #science #change

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