Government policy and technological innovation—a suggested typology

Reports on the effects of government's role in stimulating technological development provide a mixed picture. Some policies have had the expected, stimulating effect and other policies have not. We suggest that specific characteristics of technologies that government has sought to stimulate have not been taken into account when governments formulated and implemented innovation policies. While technologies can be characterized according to more dimensions, we focus on two highly relevant characteristics. Technologies either develop in a discrete manner, independent of what specific knowledge has been developed in the past, or develop cumulatively. In addition, network effects may be present or absent in the market anticipated for the products for which a technology is used. A 2×2 typology of technological development ensues. We suggest that governments should consider developing policies to stimulate technological change keeping these characteristics in mind.     

Industry innovativeness,firm size,and entrepreneurship: Schumpeter Mark III?

Emphasizing the dynamics in economies and industries, Schumpeter points to entrepreneurs carrying out ‘new combinations’. His work, and in particular the Theory of Economic Development, is often interpreted as praising individual entrepreneurs setting up new firms to contribute to an industry’s innovativeness. This has come to be referred to as the Schumpeter Mark I perspective. Later, however, in his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Schumpeter has rather suggested that large incumbents are best positioned to contribute to an industry’s innovativeness (Schumpeter Mark II). In this discussion, however, the possibly different effects of structural as opposed to dynamic industry competitiveness is often not taken into account. In addition, the contribution of new and small firms to industry innovativeness are often conflated. Using New Product Announcements as a measure of innovation, we find that industries dominated by small firms prove consistently and significantly more innovative than industries where large firms dominate. Taking account of industries’ structural and dynamic levels of competition, we find that high existing and increasing levels of new firms entering an industry, exercising what Schumpeter called the ‘entrepreneurial function’, actually decrease industry innovativeness. We conclude that the contribution of small firms in terms of industry innovativeness is different from that of large as well as new firms, suggesting a Schumpeter Mark III perspective.     

Industrial Policy—An Institutional Economic Framework for Assessment

Abstract:

In this article we suggest an institutional economic approach to classifying government policies, thus offering suggestions to improve the expected outcomes of government policy as well. We elaborate the argument for industrial policy-government policy to directly influence investment and resource allocation decisions by private companies. By adopting dimensions for industries that are stable over time, we can suggest which policies are suitable for which industries.     

Consumption in a vacuum

In recent years, economics has paid increasing attention to the phenomenon of consumption. Insights from outside of the mainstream and from outside of economics proper have found inroads as well. Largely neglected in previous decades, consumption theory in economics was the exclusive domain for technical discussions only for a long time, as the articles selected by the late Kevin Lancaster show. Consumption of many goods is, however, highly symbolic—consumption behavior is in large part about institutionalized communication where instrumental considerations do not necessarily play an important role. Some of the most promising ideas that can be developed further in economics to better understand consumption behavior are presented.     

The general role of factor intensity in the theorems of international trade

The pattern of factor intensities often allows predictions of directions of change in 2 × 2 trade theory, but the most general higher dimensional extensions have said little about analogous predictions. This paper obtains general results in an elementary way.     

Consuming Symbolic Goods: Identity & Commitment – Introduction

This paper studies how voluntary material simplicity may countervail the causal effect of relative scarcity generated by the environment of a consumer society. Analyses of both interviews and texts were performed. It is shown that voluntary material simplifiers manage, though with difficulty, to neutralize the causal effect of consumer society. This is achieved by mediating the cultural properties of the economic ethic of material simplicity, which promotes the deflation of human wants. These simplifiers consequently manage, though with difficulty due to causal interference, to deflate their material wants and maintain them below their material means. Consequently, they actualize the modus vivendi of material simplicity; namely, a practical state of relative abundance. One major implication of this study is that the scarcity postulate of mainstream economics is problematically formulated. Hence, the development of a new model of relative scarcity and abundance encourages an explanation rather than an assumption of scarcity.     

Paradoxes of Modernist Consumption – Reading Fashions

Fashion is the quintessential post-modernist consumer practice, or so many hold. In this contribution, I argue that, on the contrary, fashion should be understood as a means of communicating one's commitment to modernist values. I introduce the framework of the Social Value Network, to relate such values to institutionalized consumption behavior, allowing one to signal to others. Modernist values are not homogenous, and are in important ways contradictory, giving rise to the dynamics of fashion that can be observed.