We have a new paper “Public Procurement of Innovation: Evidence from a German Legislative Reform“ out at IJIO (preprint available without paywall here under “Research”) and I’ve briefly summarized the content in a Twitter thread (apparently that’s were these things happen these days, blogs are so 2012…). For reference, I’ll link to the tweets below:
Continue reading Public procurement as a policy instrument for innovation
Here’s a quote from John K. Galbraith’s 1952 book American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power Continue reading Do we really run out of good ideas?
In this quote from his latest book Joel Mokyr contrasts two important views on the origins of economic growth:
“[…] The difference between “Smithian” and “Schumpeterian” growth is that for the former, exchange and cooperation based on trust or respect for the law are treated as a game between individuals whereas the essence of Schumpeterian growth is based on the manipulation of natural regularities and phenomena and thus au fond should be seen as a game against nature.”
“Smithian” refers to Adam Smith, of course, who is seen as the founding father of modern economics. Continue reading Smithian vs. Schumpeterian Growth
Germán Gutiérrez and Thomas Philippon from NYU Stern published another interesting NBER working paper this week: Continue reading What explains sluggish business investments?
Olav Sorenson from Yale published a new NBER working paper called “Innovation Policy in a Networked World”. The essay is quite interesting because it reviews insights we got from social network theory (no, not Facebook, although you could analyze Facebook with the same tools) and puts them into context for designing effective policy measures to stimulate innovation. Continue reading Networking For Innovation
Next week we will organize the 7th ZEW/MaCCI Conference on the Economics of Innovation and Patenting in Mannheim and the program will be great. We will have Bronwyn Hall from Berkeley and Pierre Azoulay from MIT as keynote speakers. I’m definitely looking forward to hear them speak.
Myself, I will present a new project on the relationship between public procurement and innovation. In brief the research question is the following. Continue reading Innovation on (government) demand?
While reading Joel Mokyr’s newest book I came across an older paper of him, which I found very interesting. It is about what Mokyr calls Cardwell’s law*— the empirical regularity that “most societies that have been technologically creative have been so for relatively short periods”. Throughout economic history successful countries in terms of innovation and economic growth have usually lost their competitive edge pretty soon again and were overtaken by others. Continue reading Cardwell’s Law
These days, everybody is talking about the losers of globalization and how they made Trump and Brexit happen. People in industrialized countries lose their jobs due to offshoring and international competition, which leads them to vote for right-wing populists, so the common narrative goes. That might not be the full story though. Continue reading Innovation,unemployment and subjective well-being
(Some knowledge about technology life cycle models might be necessary to find this funny — if at all.)
Recently I stumbled over this picture on the internet. I have not checked the numbers, but everybody knows that Apple is sitting on a huge pile of cash (the same goes for Microsoft, by the way). Of course, this number makes a good conspiracy theory about what might really be going on in Cupertino. Is Apple the last fire-drake of California jealously hoarding a pile of gold in his lair? I would like to object. There are actually good economic reasons for Apple to have large cash holdings. Continue reading Why is Apple sitting on a pile of cash?
Paul Hünermund, Ph.D. 