Schumpeterian process competition, welfare and laissez-faire: An experiment in artificial economic evolution

A simulation model is used to construct a regime of artificial economic evolution, where Schumpeterian process competition prevails, in the presence of technological uncertainty and bounded rationality. The output decision of the firm is represented by a behavioural algorithm, which allows for the presence of collusive behaviour. The purpose of the experiments is to go some way towards addressing the twin issues of the nature of the relationship between market structure and industry performance in a dynamic setting, and the contention that the evolutionary metaphor implies a laissez-faire stance with respect to policy issues. Under the simplifying assumptions of the model, experiments suggest that industries which generate high average concentration over a given period can compare favourably with industries that generate low average concentration, if the time profiles of both welfare and concentration are analysed. Also, the experiments suggest that the industry will naturally evolve a structure best suited to exploit the technological environment, but despite this there is still a role for intervention into the competitive process.     

Technological Change, Market Rivalry, and the Evolution of the Capitalist Engine of Growth

In the early stages of Western industrialization, innovation was the domain of individuals who devoted their entrepreneurial talents to the development of a new product or process, typically setting up a new firm in order to take the innovation to the market. Today, commercial R&;D is almost exclusively carried out by corporate laboratories affiliated with manufacturing firms. The corporate R&;D lab, however, did not exist in its modern form until the late nineteenth century. The history of Western industrialization, thus, suggests that a fundamental change in the structure of incentives, and consequently in the nature and the organization of the R&;D process, occurred around the turn of the century. Three questions arise. What is the nature of this change? What economic forces caused it? What are its implications? To answer these questions, I construct a model where this change is endogenous to the evolution of the economy toward industrial maturity. The change in the locus of innovation—from R&;D undertaken by intventor-entrepreneurs, to R&;D undertaken within established firms in close proximity to the production line—results from the interaction of market structure and technological change. This interaction captures the essence of the evolution of the capitalist engine of growth and provides an economic explanation of a “stylized fact” that has received no attention in the theoretical literature. The endogenous market structure generates dynamic feedbacks that shape the growth path of the economy and determine the structural change it undergoes, including the endogenous formation of corporate R&;D labs. The evolution of market rivalry explains when and how established firms become the major locus of R&;D activity.     

Industry dynamics, technological regimes and the role of demand

In this paper, we propose an industrial dynamics model to analyze the interactions between the price-performance sensitivity of demand, the sources of innovation in a sector, and certain features of the corresponding pattern of industrial transformation. More precisely, we study market concentration in different technological regimes and demand conditions. The computational analysis of our model shows that market demand plays a key role in industrial dynamics. Thus, although for intermediate values of the price-performance sensitivity, our results show the well-known relationships in the literature between technological regimes and industry transformation, we find surprising outcomes when demand is strongly biased either towards price or performance. Hence, for different technological regimes, a high performance sensitivity of demand tends to concentrate the market. On the other hand, under conditions of high price sensitivity, the industry generally tends to atomize. That is to say, for extreme values of the price-performance sensitivity of demand, we find concentrated or atomized market structures no matter the technological regime we are in. These results highlight the importance of considering the role of demand in the analysis of industrial dynamics.     

Theory-driven facts and the growth in earnings inequality

It is widely accepted that the rise in U.S. wage inequality can be explained by skill-biased technological change: workplace computerization produced demand shifts that worked with a simply supply and demand “vision” of the labor market than with direct statistical evidence, which is remarkably limited. Indeed, the dominance of this elementary textbook vision has led, I argue, to a conflation between statistical facts and “theory-driven” facts—those statements about reality that are selected, interpreted, or simply created to confirm a vision of the way things work. The paper concludes by outlining an alternative explanation of the growth in wage inequality based on a sharply different, Gordonian, vision of the labor market.     

基于技术创新模式的我国风电装备制造业创新能力分析

全球风电市场的发展为我国风电设备制造业的发展提供了机遇和有利条件。分析了我国风电设备制造业的发展现状,对该产业所采用的技术创新方法进行了分类,归结为模仿创新、合作创新和自主创新3种模式。基于此创新模式分类,绘制了我国主要风电设备整机制造企业的技术能力演变路线图,总结了技术创新模式对企业创新能力提升的影响,并指出模仿创新模式和合作创新模式已经不能满足我国风电设备制造业发展的需要,我国风电设备制造业只有在积极引进消化吸收国际先进技术的同时,通过自主创新,提高技术创新能力,开发更多具有核心技术和自主知识产权的产品,才能抓住发展机遇,走出困境,做大做强。     

Technical change in the commercial aircraft industry, 1925–1975

The American commercial aircraft industry has complied an extremely impressive record of performance in innovation and growth in output. This paper assesses the impact of government policy during a fifty-year period upon innovative performance and market structure in the commercial aircraft industry. In general, this apparent success of government policies in supporting rapid technical change in the industry reflects the impact of these policies upon both the supply of technological knowledge and the demand for innovative aircraft designs. The success of this policy structure has implications for technology policies in other industries.     

How technological innovation affects the structure of an industry: entrepreneurship evolution in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry since 1980

Challenges faced by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, including reduced R&D productivity and the expiration of drugs that are high in demand, are recently being addressed through technological innovation. Such innovations are highly likely to change the structure and functioning of the industry. Since 2000, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have actively made strategic alliance, and technological innovations have changed the source of innovation from R&D to entrepreneurship within the industry. In this study, we identify the evolution of entrepreneurship and discuss the changes caused by technological advancements since 1980 by analysing patterns of exporting and acquiring technology data from Medtrack. Over difference period, biopharmaceutical firms have gained new knowledge and improved technology, and have implemented this newly acquired knowledge and innovation to introduce drugs to the market.     

Sectoral systems of environmental innovation: An application to the French automotive industry

This article seeks to show how a sectoral system approach may contribute to the analysis of the determinants of environmental innovations. By using Malerba's [F. Malerba: Sectoral systems of innovation and production, Res. Policy Vol. 102, 845-859, (2002)] concept of sectoral system of innovation and production, we develop a sectoral framework based on three building blocks: technological regimes, demand conditions and environmental and innovation policy. Within this framework, the sectoral patterns of environmental innovation result from the interplay between these three blocks. The conceptual framework is applied to the case of the French automotive industry, with a specific focus on the development of low emission vehicles. The analysis shows how technological regime and demand conditions lead to technological inertia, and so to a strong persistence of the dominant design. Finally, environmental and innovative policy are considered in an integrated way, so that we can study how they influence technological regime and demand conditions, and in the meantime how they are conditioned by these two blocks.     

基于三维空间模型的产业集群持续成长研究

目前,世界范围内一部分产业集群正遭受萎缩和衰退的威胁,这是一个亟待解决的问题。首先分析了产业集群最理想的演化路径,然后构建了由市场需求、产业聚集度和集群动态核心能力构成的三维空间模型,并加以分析。最后提出:产业集群向市场需求、产业聚集度、集群动态核心能力三个维度发展是实现产业集群沿最理想演化路径持续成长的关键。     

Tacit collusion in housing markets: the case of Santiago,Chile

In this article, using a detailed micro-database from Santiago, Chile, the potential existence of tacit collusion in housing markets is investigated. In order to perform the test, Santiago’s housing market is split into four different submarkets using hedonic price analysis and household’s socioeconomics characteristics. Then, using a GMM panel data model, regressions are run for each submarket, correlating industry’s markups with the aggregate level of activity. The main finding is that low and middle income submarkets present higher average markups and a pro-cyclical behaviour. This finding is consistent with a market where participants do not face capacity constraints and behave strategically to sustain tacit collusion during increasing demand periods.     

Technological Regimes and Schumpeterian Patterns of Innovation

This paper proposes that the specific pattern of innovative activities in an industry can be explained as the outcome of different technological (learning) regimes . A technological regime is defined by the particular combination of technological opportunities, appropriability of innovations, cumulativeness of technical advances and properties of the knowledge base. Building upon the distinction between Schumpeter Mark I and Schumpeter Mark II industries, this paper provides empirical estimates of the relationships between indicators of the Schumpeterian patterns of innovation (concentration of innovative activities, stability in the hierarchy of innovators and importance of new innovators) and indicators of the variables defining technological regimes.     

Demand competition and investment heterogeneity in industries based on systemic technologies: evidence from the US long-distance telecommunications services industry, 1984–1996

Industries based on systemic technologies are often characterized by a dynamically evolving market structure. The market structure that provides the context for firms’ investment choices itself evolves due to the feedback effect of firms’ investments. In such cases, analyses of investment-performance relationship, purporting to explain sustainable competitive advantages, should ideally account for the endogeneity of the determinants of market structure—technology, demand, and policy—and firms’ investment choices. This paper focuses on the endogeneity of the demand-side determinants of market structure and firms’ demand-side investments under the assumed conditions of constant technology and policy environment. In doing so it contradicts the extant depiction of the evolution of industrial market structure in the above context as primarily caused by the evolution of underlying technological system in response to firms’ endogenous technological investments that generate sustainable competitive advantage for the dominant firms. A dynamic evolutionary model of demand competition captures the competition in the downstream market for basic industry product and its complements in an industry based on systemic technology during its post-interoperability stage. A natural experiment drawn from the US Long-distance telecommunications services industry during 1984–1996 allows testing the hypotheses drawn from the above model in a panel data setting.     

东北地区高技术产业技术体制研究

本文首先建立技术体制的框架模型,对影响和决定产业技术体制的四个主要因素：市场容量、创新独占性、技术内化性、社会动力进行分析。这些因素影响和决定着产业技术体制的结构和特点,而技术体制的结构和特点将影响到产业的产品结构、技术结构、生产结构、创新结构和竞争结构,进而影响到产业创新能力的提升和核心竞争力的构筑;其次,根据概念模型中对市场容量、创新独占性、技术内化性、社会动力的界定构建技术体制评价指标体系;再次,以电子及通信设备制造业为例,对东北地区高技术产业技术体制的发展规律进行探索,并对存在的问题进行深入分析,力求为东北地区高技术产业技术体制的建设提供理论参考。     

科技创新效率与煤炭企业高质量绿色发展效应研究

收集了2009—2018年全国煤炭工业企业科技创新数据、煤炭深加工等转型数据,采用判别分析法确定煤炭企业科技创新效率、高质量绿色转型效应;收集全国34家煤业上市公司数据,采用熵值法确定煤炭企业资产结构演变熵值和绿色演变效应;采用回归分析法确定科技创新效率与经济高质量绿色发展效应的关系,得出的结论是：煤炭工业科技创新从整体上产生了经济高质量绿色发展效应。这种“高质量发展”作用主要是促进了煤炭企业高质量转型,产生了绿色转型效应。其绿色转型效应远远超过煤炭企业产业方向调整、资产结构演变所产生的“阵痛”负作用;煤炭企业高质量转型、资产结构绿色演变是连接科技创新与经济效益的纽带。     

How corporate cultures coevolve with the business environment: The case of firm growth crises and industry evolution

This paper shows how cognitive human dispositions that take effect at the level of an individual firm's corporate culture have repercussions on an industry's evolution. In our theory, the latter is attributable to evolving corporate cultures coupled with changes in a firm's business environment. With the help of a formal model of evolving corporate cultures, we demonstrate how firms can establish a cooperative cultural regime that yields competitive advantages in an innovative, fast changing environment. Depending on within-firm social learning processes and cognitive constraints of human agents, organizations then reach a critical cognitive firm size in their development beyond which the level of cooperation deteriorates rapidly—they systematically face a growth crisis. Organizations successful in such an environment and reaching a critical technological size may, however, reap economies of scale in a later, mature and stable business environment with altered corporate culture. Furthermore, we relate these findings to empirical evidence on firm survival and performance in different industries, the evolution of organizational structures, and technological advancements in production technologies, and we identify some determinants of market structures.     

Optimal cartel trigger price strategies

A dynamical model of industry equilibrium is described in which a cartel deters deviations from collusive output levels by threatening to produce at Cournot quantities for a period of fixed duration whenever the market price falls below some trigger price. In this model firms can observe only their own production level and a common market price. The market demand curve is assumed to have a stochastic component, so that an unexpectedly low price may signal either deviations from collusive output levels or a “downward” demand shock.     

An Alternative Approach to the Institutional Economics of the Eurozone Crisis

I argue that the Eurozone crisis is neither a crisis of European sovereigns in the sense of governmental over-borrowing, nor a crisis of sovereign debt market over-lending. Rather, it is a function of the “sovereign debt market” institution itself. Crisis, I argue, is not an occurrence, but an element fulfilling a precise technical function within this institution. It ensures the possibility of designating — in the market’s day-to-day mechanisms rather than analytical hindsight — normal (tranquil, undisturbed) market functioning. To show this, I propose an alternative view on the institutional economics of sovereign debt markets. First, I engage literature on the emergent qualities of the institutions “market” and “firm” in product markets, concluding that the point of coalescence for markets is the approximation of an optimal observation of consumer tastes. I then examine the specific institution “financial markets,” where the optimal observation of economic fundamentals is decisive. For the specific sub-institution “sovereign debt market,” I conclude that the fundamentals in question — country fundamentals — oscillate between a status of observable fundamentals outside of markets and operationalized fundamentals influenced by market movements. This, in turn, allows me to argue that the specific case of the Eurozone crisis is due to neither of the two causes mentioned above. Rather, the notion of “crisis” takes on a technical sense within the market structure, guaranteeing the separation of herd behavior and isomorphic behavior on European sovereign debt markets. By the same token, the so-called Eurozone crisis ceases to be a crisis in the conventional sense.     

金融结构转型与收入分配优化*

本文阐释了金融结构(包括银行业结构)影响收入分配的理论机制，并运用动态面板模型和面板门槛模型分析了金融结构对收入分配的影响效应。研究表明：(1)金融制度功能的有效发挥依赖于金融资源在数量规模和结构层次上的匹配程度，金融要素之间根据市场主体的融资需求形成相互分工协作，在促进金融结构转型过程中实现收入分配优化；(2)在资本密集型产业优先发展的战略背景下，银行业结构对收入分配存在逐级递减的正向影响效应，大型商业银行市场融资份额占比过高将不利于优化收入分配；(3)在经济增长进程中，金融结构对收入分配存在倒“U”型影响效应，金融结构由“银行主导型”向“市场主导型”转变将有利于优化收入分配。     

金融结构转型与收入分配优化*

本文阐释了金融结构(包括银行业结构)影响收入分配的理论机制，并运用动态面板模型和面板门槛模型分析了金融结构对收入分配的影响效应。研究表明：(1)金融制度功能的有效发挥依赖于金融资源在数量规模和结构层次上的匹配程度，金融要素之间根据市场主体的融资需求形成相互分工协作，在促进金融结构转型过程中实现收入分配优化；(2)在资本密集型产业优先发展的战略背景下，银行业结构对收入分配存在逐级递减的正向影响效应，大型商业银行市场融资份额占比过高将不利于优化收入分配；(3)在经济增长进程中，金融结构对收入分配存在倒“U”型影响效应，金融结构由“银行主导型”向“市场主导型”转变将有利于优化收入分配。