Pfister, Hesse, Spoerer and Wolf, 2021

• Ulrich Pfister, Jan-Otmar Hesse, Mark Spoerer and Nikolaus Wolf, editors. Deutschland 1871: Die Nationalstaatsbildung und der Weg in die moderne Wirtschaft (Germany 1871: Nation Building and the Transition to Modern Economic Growth). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021. xix + 454 pp. €99 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-3-16-160068-5.

There's a chapter on patents. From Timothy Guinnane's review at EH.Net:

Alexander Donges and Jochen Streb consider an area where the Reich had one of its greatest immediate impacts: patent law. Prior to 1871 the states had different attitudes towards patents. Prussia allowed patents but construed the novelty requirement quite narrowly. Once issued, Prussian patents had a short duration and were rarely renewed. Other states such as Saxony were more liberal in their interpretation of what deserved a patent. While there was widespread agreement on the need for an all-German patent law, the drastically conflicting views required serious compromise. The Reich patent law (1876) reflected Prussia’s narrow interpretation of what could be protected, but permitting repeated renewals. . . .

Other chapters have interesting and related content. Again from Guinnane's review:

Alfred Reckendrees discusses cooperation among state officials before 1871. The states had long traditions of working together [and] informal networks of officials [met] and worked together . . .

Gerold Ambrosius discusses the federal structure created in 1871. [The new Reich] had little of the requisite bureaucratic apparatus [for economic legislation, at first]. The federal chancellor (Kanzler) [was at first] the only real Reich functionary. The chancellor relied on [his staff and] the Prussian state’s ministries in the absence of Reich equivalents: thus the details of economic policy for the Reich were developed by officials in the Prussian trade ministry. This arrangement suited Otto von Bismarck, who served as both Reich chancellor and the Prussian equivalent (Ministerpräsident) until . . . 1890. By the late 1870s the Reich had created some of its own ministries (such as Justice and Finance) and acquired a more direct role in policy after Bismarck’s departure.

Ulrich Pfister [examines] German economic growth starting in the 1870s . . . GDP per person and real wages [grew] faster in the later nineteenth century than earlier. The industrial sector became relatively (much) larger and more heterogeneous than it had been during the early years of industrialization. . . .

Sebastian Braun and Jan-Otmar Hesse consider the Reich’s impact in . . . developing and integrating the post, a telegraph system, and the railroad. Considerable effort prior to 1871 had resulted in only partial integration of these services across state boundaries. The Reich quickly created an all-German post office (1871) and, later, a telegraph system, but the railroad network remained largely uncoordinated until after World War I.

Michael Schneider describes the statistical services for the several states and their cooperation under the leadership of the Reich office created in 1872. Larger states such as Saxony and Prussia had long funded services that published often detailed reports on population, the economy, government operations, and other matters. These offices had coordinated to provide some common information such as the Customs Union censuses. But the main story was heterogeneity: smaller, poorer states could not afford the costs of the material churned out by Prussia and others, and different offices adopted conflicting definitions and approaches that reflected, in part, differences in local economies. The Reich office’s initial role was to persuade state offices to collect information in a standard way. Schneider focuses, quite usefully, on the difficulties involved in the census of enterprises (Betriebzählung). . .

Max-Stefan Schulze [compares the combined Germany to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, aka the Dual Monarchy, based on the" growth of economic aggregates and growth accounting exercises. Schulze stresses recent findings that rehabilitate Austria-Hungary from an older view that its economic performance was always weaker in the nineteenth century; Hungary, less developed than either Austria or the Reich, enjoyed faster productivity growth 1870-1910 than either. . .