building competitive advantage innovation and corporate governance in european construction this paper explores the relationship between corporate governance and innovation this is examined through detailed interviews with the largest contractors in five european countries the ability to undertake research and development in production technologies by contractors differs widely across different countries this may be explained by the extent to which strategic control is in the hands of those who have the incentives and abilities to allocate resources to uncertain and irreversible investments in innovation this is influenced by particular features of firm ownership organisational and management structure internal mechanisms to diffuse knowledge and links to external sources of knowledge

network externalities technological progress and the competition of market contracts abstract network externalities are used to describe the fact that many modern products become more valuable the more users adopt products of the same technology where network externalities and technological progress exist the various kinds of inefficiencies discussed in the recent literature can be explained by different types of contracts the main categories analysed are simple market contracts update contracts and service contracts it is shown that these types of contract emerge endogenously from the incentive structure of profit maximizing firms competition between these contracts may substantially reduce inefficient allocations caused by network externalities

tipping and concentration in markets with indirect network effects this paper develops a framework for measuring tipping the increase in a firm s market share dominance caused by indirect network effects our measure compares the expected concentration in a market to the hypothetical expected concentration that would arise in the absence of indirect network effects in practice this measure requires a model that can predict the counterfactual market concentration under different parameter values capturing the strength of indirect network effects we build such a model for the case of dynamic standards competition in a market characterized by the classic hardware software paradigm to demonstrate its applicability we calibrate it using demand estimates and other data from the 32 64 bit generation of video game consoles a canonical example of standards competition with indirect network effects in our example we find that indirect network effects can lead to a strong economically significant increase in market concentration we also find important roles for beliefs on both the demand side as consumers tend to pick the product they expect to win the standards war and on the supply side as firms engage in penetration pricing to invest in growing their networks

in search of insights into the generation of techno economic trends micro and macro constituencies in the microprocessor industry abstract in the field of technology policy few challenges are more intriguing than understanding the nature of technical and market trends this paper deals with this problem by using the sociotechnical constituencies approach in order to integrate the treatment of micro macro issues from product to industry the case study is that of the microprocessor industry where at present a risc reduced instruction set computer technology is emerging in a field where a powerful and far from exhausted cisc complex instruction set computer technology tends to occupy almost every segment of the market the analysis reveals how emerging product constituencies do implement pro active trend creating strategies in order to establish themselves as industrial trends and by so doing they simultaneously re define the existing content of the macro industrial level the study also reveals the important role of the nature and maturity of microprocessor technology in conditioning the constituency building strategies implemented by different players microprocessor technology is specifically characterised as an architectural codified knowledge component with indirect network externalities and weak appropriability regime finally the paper also highlights the potential risks of both fragmentation and complete proprietary control of technology in technological processes involving strongly competitive situations

meta paradigm change and the theory of the firm many seemingly unrelated debates on the theory of the firm are in fact part of a single deeper transformation of the social sciences as the foundational assumptions of 20th century social science have slowly been shown by science to be false new sub paradigms have emerged which cumulatively drop i theoretical assumptions about markets to explain firms ii epistemological assumptions about knowledge to explain diversity and iii metaphysical assumptions about causality to explain technical change debates occur across each of these levels

a large scale mapping of territorial development dynamics in latin america summary this paper summarizes a study of changes in per capita income monetary poverty and income distribution in 9 045 subnational administrative units of nine latin american countries between the mid 1990s and mid 2000s the results largely support spatial convergence of mean household incomes although the estimates indicate it has been slow territorial inequality is found to be persistent and reduces the pro poor effect of local income growth although national context specific the estimates also indicate that territorial development dynamics are influenced by the structural features of the territories in view of the evidence territorial development policies in latin america seem well warranted

ants rationality and recruitment this paper offers an explanation of behavior that puzzled entomologists and economists ants faced with two identical food sources were observed to concentrate more on one of these but after a period they would turn their attention to the other the same phenomenon has been observed in humans choosing between restaurants after discussing the nature of foraging and recruitment behavior in ants a simple model of stochastic recruitment is suggested this explains the herding and epidemics described in the literature on financial markets as corresponding to the equilibrium distribution of a stochastic process rather than to switching between multiple equilibria

assessing the impact of crop diversification on farm poverty in india summary crop diversification into high value crops hvcs can be a strategy to improve livelihood outcomes for farmers using data from a nationally representative survey we establish that households diversifying toward hvcs are less likely to be poor the biggest impact being for smallholders furthermore using continuous treatment matching we establish the relationship between degree of diversification share of area dedicated to hvc and poverty growers of hvcs need to allocate at least 50 area to hvcs to escape poverty effect of diversification on poverty is in general positive but it withers after a threshold probably because of constraints i e capital on smaller farms and labor on larger ones

global ethics of collective internet governance intrinsic motivation and open source software the ethical governance of the global internet is an accelerating global phenomenon a key paradox of the global internet is that it allows individual and collective decision making to co exist with each other open source software oss communities are a globally accelerating phenomenon oss refers to groups of programs that allow the free use of the software and further the code sharing to the general and corporate users of the software the combination of private provision and public knowledge and software and the seeming paradox of economic versus social motivations have stimulated a wide debate between researchers and policymakers in this article we analyze oss communities from the viewpoint of intrinsic motivation knowledge creation and collective internet governance we believe that the growth of global oss has fundamental implications for business ethics and the governance of the global internet in the twenty first century

forms of trust and conditions for their stability of the three principal approaches to trust we decided to investigate in greater detail the one in which trust is regarded as a belief that the individuals involved hold about a relationship trust was defined as a delegatory relationship based on anticipation of the delegatee s behaviour we reached four main conclusions first the solution to the problem posed by the indeterminacy of trust lies in the differentiation and hierarchisation of the various forms of trust contractual organisational and tacit on the basis of their degree of irreversibility and stability second contractual trust is unstable because it comes up against the problem of guarantees of individual intentions this leads to the third conclusion rational evaluation by individuals cannot by itself establish trust which is based on collective beliefs practices and rules fourth we identified two conditions for the stability of trust the creation of irreversibilities through adherence to a rule and the creation of a confidence interval within which different interpretations of contradictory individual strategies are tolerated thus the viability of the various forms of trust depends on the ability of institutions and organisations to create rules that are likely when applied to produce an interval in which tolerance of mutual intentions is the norm these analyses of trust hence highlight the role of time and period of time in the notion of trust

openness to international markets and the diffusion of standards compliance in latin america a multi level analysis abstract this study contributes to the debate on the role of openness to international markets for the diffusion of compliance with international standards in developing countries relying upon aggregated data for 1995 2005 as well as upon firm level and secondary data from the chilean salmon farming industry the determinants of iso 9000 and iso 14001 diffusion at country industry and firm level in latin american are analysed our evidence suggests that openness to international markets acts at different levels at both the country and industry level it creates awareness and access to new knowledge therefore providing economic incentives or penalisations for evaluating certification this effect competes and complements the deliberated efforts and policies in explaining diffusion of certification at firm level however openness to international markets alone does not provide sufficient opportunities to acquire the knowledge required to comply with these standards in this case standards compliance depends on firm s capability to use relational and search assets as well as on national and industrial efforts and policies to spread standards usage

prudence with respect to ambiguity under expected utility prudence is equivalent to a positive third derivative of utility and plays a crucial role in precautionary saving behaviour eeckhoudt and schlesinger 2006 proposed behavioural definitions of prudence and of higher order risk preferences the present paper proposes a similar definition for prudence with respect to ambiguity i e situations in which objective probabilities are not available implications for several ambiguity models are derived ambiguity prudence is implied by hansen and sargent s 2001 multiplier preferences empirically correlates with financial behaviour and plays a key role in prevention behaviour this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

a percolation based model explaining delayed takeoff in new product diffusion a model of new product diffusion is proposed in which a site percolation dynamics represents socially driven diffusion of knowledge about the product s characteristics in a population of consumers a consumer buys the new product if her valuation of it formed after her witnessing the product in use among her friends or neighbors is not below the price of the product announced in a given period our model attributes the empirical finding of a delayed takeoff of a new product to a drift of the percolation dynamics from a nonpercolating regime to a percolating regime this drift is caused by learning effects lowering the price of the product or by network effects increasing its individual valuations by consumers both with an increasing number of buyers

hedonic price indexes for spreadsheets and an empirical test for network externalities in this article i first estimate hedonic price equations for computer spreadsheet programs and then use the analysis to empirically test whether network externalities exist in this industry the study shows that consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for spreadsheets that are compatible with the lotus platform and for spreadsheets that offer links to external databases and a similar premium for spreadsheets that offer local area network externalities finally the quality adjusted real price of computer spreadsheets declined by approximately 15 per year from 1986 to 1991

cooperative membership and dairy performance among smallholders in ethiopia this study assesses the impact of cooperative membership among dairy producers in selale ethiopia we selected ten impact indicators proportion of dairy income to total household income total dairy income proportion of crossbreed cows to the total number of cows in the herd indicator of technological innovation amount of feed bought another indicator of technological innovation milk production milk productivity commercialization price per liter of milk price per kg of butter and the share of milk production that is processed at the household level in order to minimize the biases that may arise by simply comparing members and non members we employed a propensity score matching technique the empirical analysis shows that cooperatives are strong in facilitating technological transformations and commercialization but weak in offering better prices these findings suggest structural trade offs between different domains of cooperatives action overall our study concludes that cooperatives can be efficient business institutions to foster rural development and food security

wind power policy in complex adaptive markets abstract this paper aims to advance research into the effectiveness of policies for encouraging technological transition in the energy sector in general and wind power in particular it contends that the ineffectiveness of wind power development policy in most nations stems from a linear approach to policy design that is unsuited to complex adaptive markets the paper argues that in complex adaptive markets policies are required that foster competition on a level playing field insights are extracted from complexity theory to advance four principles for effective wind power policy in such markets these principles include establishing policy initiatives to encourage technological diversity establish clear and progressive short to medium term targets enhance environmental monitoring systems and establish a malleable policy regime that directly resolves emergent challenges while simultaneously sustaining market momentum to ensure long term targets are met in order to demonstrate the applied relevance of these principles the paper applies these concepts to a historical analysis of denmark s wind power development policies

second order sustainability conditions for the development of sustainable innovations in a dynamic environment abstract in particular radical innovations can be important means to achieving improved sustainability due to the existence of path dependency and lock in however the transition from one technological trajectory to another more sustainable one is often impeded by significant barriers fortunately these barriers are by their nature subject to substantial changes in time so it makes sense to carefully distinguish between periods of stability showing high barriers in which the given trajectory can hardly be left and periods of instability characterized by low barriers where a new trajectory can be reached more easily the latter distinction matters since sustainable innovations often rely on governmental regulation and the economic burden arising from this regulation will be much lower in periods of instability moreover due to the complexity and dynamics of change in their respective environments innovations are generally associated with fundamental uncertainty such that it becomes impossible to predict the degree of sustainability yielded by specific innovations in the longer run under these circumstances it is essential to facilitate the change between trajectories and to allow for the possibility to select between a variety of alternative trajectories within a process of trial and error sustainability as viewed from this evolutionary perspective is therefore better understood as the general capability to adapt that is to readily change from less to more sustainable technological trajectories since the latter kind of sustainability determines the conditions under which the former kind i e sustainability related to a specific technology can be achieved the two kinds are respectively called second order and first order sustainability finally a series of determinants and corresponding indicators from the techno economic political and socio cultural sphere is identified which after proper measurement and weighting allow for making an assessment whether and when the incumbent industry is sufficiently destabilized and the political system rendered sufficiently favorable to the new more sustainable technology such that a transition to the preferred trajectory is possible without too much effort

spillovers from modern supply chains to traditional markets product innovation and adoption by smallholders there is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can benefit from modern supply chains however most of the available studies concentrate on export markets and fail to capture spillover effects that modern supply chains may have on local markets here we analyze the case of sweet pepper in thailand which was initially introduced as a product innovation in modern supply chains but which is now widely traded also in more traditional markets using survey data from smallholder farmers and econometric techniques we show that sweet pepper cultivation contributes significantly to higher household incomes strikingly at this stage participation in modern supply chains does not lead to higher incomes than supplying sweet pepper to traditional markets however the results also indicate that missing land titles weak infrastructure conditions and limited access to information constituted serious constraints during the early phases of sweet pepper adoption such constraints need to be overcome so that smallholder farmers are better prepared for the prompt reactions needed under rapidly changing market conditions

dynamic competition with network externalities why history matters we consider dynamic competition among platforms in a market with network exter nalities a platform that dominated the market in the previous period becomes focal in the current period in that agents play the equilibrium in which they adopt the focal platform whenever such equilibrium exists yet when faced with higher quality competition can a low quality platform remain focal in the finite horizon case the unique equilibrium is efficient for patient platforms with an infinite time horizon however there are multiple equilibria where either the lowor high quality platform dominates if qualities are stochastic the platform with a better average quality wins with a higher probability even when its realized quality is lower and this probability increases as platforms become more patient hence social welfare may decline as platforms become more forward looking

inequality control rights and rent seeking sugar cooperatives in maharashtra this paper presents a theory of rent seeking within farmer cooperatives in which inequality of asset ownership affects relative control rights of different groups of members the two key assumptions are constraints on lump sum transfers from poorer members and disproportionate control rights wielded by wealthier members transfers of rents to the latter are achieved by depressing prices paid for inputs supplied by members and diverting resulting retained earnings the theory predicts that increased heterogeneity of landholdings in the local area causes increased inefficiency by inducing a lower input price and a lower level of installed crushing capacity predictions concerning the effect of the distribution of local landownership on sugarcane price capacity levels and participation rates of different classes of farmers are confirmed by data from nearly 100 sugar cooperatives in the indian state of maharashtra over the period 1971 93

governance strategies and welfare effects vertical integration and contracts in the catfish sector in vietnam using an original dataset from the vietnamese catfish sector we study the impact of vertical coordination options on household welfare and the implications of different stages of vertical coordination for the success of the whole sector the welfare gain from contract farming and employment on processor owned estate farms is estimated using a maximum simulated likelihood estimator our results show positive welfare effects from participating in contract farming but not from employment on processor owned estate farms the results imply that contract farming presents opportunities for economic growth but additional effort is required to make the contracts more accessible to smallholders

privatization in eastern europe irreversibility and critical mass effects abstract this paper proposes a model to shed light on two important policy features of privatization in central and eastern europe the idea of a necessary critical mass of privatization on one hand and the great difficulties encountered in the actual privatization process on the other the model incorporates a positive externality related to the size of the private sector multiple equilibria may arise for political and economic reasons policies of free distribution are analysed with the model they may eliminate the danger of policy reversals due to excess unemployment but may at the same time increase the relative cost of restructuring leading in some cases to pareto inferior outcomes

linking smallholders to markets determinants and impacts of farmer collective action in kenya summary this article investigates determinants and impacts of cooperative organization using the example of smallholder banana farmers in kenya farmer groups are inclusive of the poor although wealthier households are more likely to join employing propensity score matching we find positive income effects for active group members yet price advantages of collective marketing are small and high value market potentials have not yet been tapped beyond prices farmer groups function as important catalysts for innovation adoption through promoting efficient information flows we discuss the conditions under which collective action is useful and through what mechanisms the potential benefits emerge

waves in consumption with interdependence among consumers this paper presents a model to analyze the development of consumption patterns when there are social interactions among consumers in particular a consumer in this model recognizes three reference groups a peer group of similar consumers with whom the consumer wishes to share consumption activities a distinction group from which the consumer wishes to distinguish him or herself and an aspiration group to which the consumer does not belong but wishes that he she did and with whom the consumer would like to share consumption activities the interplay of aspiration and distinction can lead to waves in consumption these can happen when for example the avant garde consumption of up market pioneers is copied by other types of consumer as the latter aspire to emulate the former the former in turn seek to distinguish themselves from these unwelcome companions by varying their consumption in consequence a particular consumption activity may start up market an then gradually proceed down the social spectrum more complex patterns with continuing cycles in consumption can also be found the paper argues that this model is not only applicable to the consumption behaviour of an elite or would be elite but is relevant in a wide range of consumption settings

competing technologies the learning curve and rational expectations abstract the problem of choice between several variants of a technology subject to dynamic learning economies is examined in a rational expectations model with overlapping adopters it is shown that even with rational expectations the long term market outcome depends sensitively on the pattern of early chance events and that only one variant of the technology will come to dominate the market in the long run this variant need not be the one which is socially optimal or most promising technically

wright meets markowitz how standard portfolio theory changes when assets are technologies following experience curves abstract we consider how to optimally allocate investments in a portfolio of competing technologies using the standard mean variance framework of portfolio theory we assume that technologies follow the empirically observed relationship known as wright s law also called a learning curve or experience curve which postulates that costs drop as cumulative production increases this introduces a positive feedback between cost and investment that complicates the portfolio problem leading to multiple local optima and causing a trade off between concentrating investments in one project to spur rapid progress vs diversifying over many projects to hedge against failure we study the two technology case and characterize the optimal diversification in terms of progress rates variability initial costs initial experience risk aversion discount rate and total demand the efficient frontier framework is used to visualize technology portfolios and show how feedback results in nonlinear distortions of the feasible set for the two period case in which learning and uncertainty interact with discounting we compare different scenarios and find that the discount rate plays a critical role

technological clusters with a knowledge based principle evidence from a delphi investigation in the french case of the life sciences abstract recent works in the theory of technical change show the effect of irreversibility and lock in on the diffusion and creation of innovation processes which are able to stop the development of a generic technology therefore industrial policies play a major role in selecting and supporting the innovative process the purpose of this paper is to prove the possibility to derive a typology of future innovations in terms of generic technology from a delphi type technology survey thus it is possible to get a better understanding of the industrial dynamics and to design an interesting tool for industrial policies or for firm strategies as far as they aim at developing stable technological trajectories this is applied to the french case of the life sciences the paper suggests interesting explanatory trajectories in order to fight against diseases such as cancer alzheimer or schizophrenia

when do markets tip a cognitive hierarchy approach the market structure of platform competition is critically important to managers and policy makers network effects in these markets predict concentrated industry structures whereas competitive effects and differentiation suggest the opposite standard theory offers little guidance full rationality models have multiple equilibria with wildly varying market concentration we relax full rationality in favor of a boundedly rational cognitive hierarchy model even small departures from full rationality allow sharp predictions there is a unique equilibrium in every case when participants single home and platforms are vertically differentiated a single dominant platform emerges multihoming can give rise to a strong weak market structure one platform is accessed by all and the other is used as a backup by some agents horizontal differentiation in contrast leads to fragmentation differentiation rather than competitive effects mainly determines market structure

gifts as economic signals and social symbols gift giving has often puzzled economists especially because efficient gifts like cash or giving exactly what a person asks for seem crass or inappropriate it is shown in a formal game theoretic model that gifts serve as signals of a person s intentions about future investment in a relationship and inefficient gifts can be better signals other explanations for the inefficiency of gift giving are advanced and some stylized facts about gift giving practices are described many of which are consistent with the signaling view of gifts

light emitting diodes and the lighting revolution the emergence of a solid state lighting industry emergence of new industries from evolving technologies is critical to the global economy yet has been relatively understudied due to the paucity of available data this study draws lessons on industry emergence by analyzing how a solid state lighting ssl industry grew out of light emitting diode led technologies that evolved for half a century with participation by tens of thousands of researchers in universities national laboratories and firms using data on publications patents and firms combined with business history we trace the evolution of ssl through a succession of market niches at times a few researchers with unorthodox research approaches made breakthroughs that greatly advanced particular technology trajectories and pushed led research in unexpected directions a succession of led market niches advanced the technology and provided profits to incentivize continuing research while reducing cost and improving efficacy of leds innovating firms developed a thicket of patents and captured substantial profit but were embroiled in extensive litigation that was ultimately resolved through cross licensing a major new generation of lighting products is now disrupting the traditional lighting industry although the leading incumbent lighting firms all invested early and heavily in ssl the industry s future leadership is uncertain

success in high value horticultural export markets for the small farmers the case of mahagrapes in india summary in spite of being the second largest horticultural producer in the world india is a failed exporter mainly because of the inability to meet the food safety standards hence successes in horticultural exports are rare here we study one unique success story mahagrapes a marketing partner to farmer cooperatives attributing its success to a combination of collective action and public private partnerships our results indicate that mahagrapes farmers earn significantly higher income vis a vis their outside marketing option and smallholders face no bias in selection together with the farmer s ability to consistently meet standards this implies that the model can be scaled up 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

platform selection in the lab abstract emerging literature explores experimental platform selection games these games converge rapidly on the superior platform under a wide range of conditions we replicate the remarkable results of hossain and morgan 2009 in which such a game tips almost perfectly to the superior platform next we show that platform coordination fails when seemingly innocent increases in out of equilibrium payoffs are introduced the inflated payoffs keep the best reply structure unchanged and do not influence players security levels our design allows control for the explanatory force of risk dominance we find that equilibrium selection theory is unable to account for coordination failure while observed behavior is consistent with non rational learning furthermore and contrary to the literature we find that efficiency suffers when an inferior platform is granted initial monopoly

libre software turning fads into institutions the article presents an economic analysis of libre software and of its sustainability as a new economic model for software we underline the role of libre software development communities and analyze incentives for both kernel and obscure developers we emphasize the role of the so called public licenses to provide an appropriate institutional framework we show that several features of libre software also allow it to improve faster than proprietary software and therefore to achieve strong market performance when competing against existing standards even when proprietary software producers react we illustrate our point using a simple local and global interaction model to study the technological competition between linux and windows on the server operating system os market we finally argue that if sufficient initial momentum could be created through public intervention libre software could turn from a fad into an efficient economic institution to correct inefficiencies due to network externalities

from mass production to flexible specialization the sectoral and geographical extent of contract work in us manufacturing 1963 1997 e ssletzbichler j 2003 from mass production to flexible specialization the sectoral and geographical extent of contract work in us manufacturing 1963 1997 reg studies 37 753 771 over the last two decades much work in economic geography focused on a fundamental reorganization of capitalist production summarized as shift from fordist mass production to flexible specialization complementing this shift to flexible forms of production is the revival of interest in marshallian industrial districts characterized by geographically localized and tightly linked networks of small firms many a claim was based on anecdotal evidence in selected industries and regions in order to strengthen the importance of these results it is necessary to provide comprehensive empirical evidence across a broad range of sectors and regions this paper traces the key developments in economic geography and examines empirically the extent of flexible specialization in us manufacturing more specifically the paper focuses on

innovation processes in large technical systems market liberalization as a driver for radical change abstract electricity supply is a large technical system which exhibits strong path dependencies and high barriers for radical innovations recent market liberalization however has initiated a fundamental restructuring the paper analyzes how liberalization has altered innovation processes in the field of electricity supply we examine three radical innovations under monopoly conditions and contrast the findings with the results from a survey on the innovation behavior of electric utilities in liberalized markets we argue that the selection environment for innovations has changed in various respects in our sample new options open to innovation activities have emerged at the level of the firm and utility strategies turn out to be more heterogeneous this may be interpreted as an increase in the variety of search processes which may lead to a mid term decrease of path dependencies

persistence of power elites and institutions we construct a model to study the implications of changes in political insti tutions for economic institutions a change in political institutions alters the distribution of de jure political power but creates incentives for investments in de facto political power to partially or even fully offset change in de jure power the model can imply a pattern of captured democracy whereby a democratic regime may survive but choose economic institutions favoring an elite the model provides conditions under which economic or policy outcomes will be invariant to changes in political institutions and economic institutions them selves will persist over time jel d02 d72 the domination of an organized minority over the unor ganized majority is inevitable the power of any minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the majority who stands alone before the totality of the organized minor ity at the same time the minority is organized for the very reason that it is a minority

institutional reform and technological practice the case of electricity this article proposes a framework for categorizing possible interrelations between technological and institutional change and applies this framework to the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector it is argued that there is a need for coherence between institutions and technological practice so as to safeguard the satisfactory functioning of electricity infrastructure the identification of possible incoherences between institutions and technological practice allows for a better understanding of the potential drivers for change and the evolutionary processes of which they may be part this article attempts to elaborate the nature of this co evolution in somewhat more detail using specific levels of analysis that are exemplified in a four level model in the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector the institutional framework has changed from a public utility oriented towards a market oriented system however the technological practice remained unchanged a system oriented approach that relies on centralized planning control and operation this discrepancy between institutions and technological practice leads to significant frictions in the functioning of the electricity sector but it also offers opportunities for innovation in order to make liberalization a success it might be necessary to stimulate certain technical developments i e distributed generation and intelligent networks

biodiversity conservation in a dynamic world may lead to inefficiencies due to lock in effects and path dependence abstract although biodiversity is generally diminishing in some areas its conservation is expanding however the exact path of this expansion is uncertain this can lead to problems of path dependence and lock in effects path dependence describes situations where history strongly influences present decisions and lock in effects refer to situations where an earlier decision provides strong incentives to follow a particular path even if more efficient alternatives are available later on we develop a conceptual ecological economic model to investigate which ecological and economic parameters favour the appearance of efficiency losses in biodiversity conservation due to path dependence and lock in effects in a dynamic two period two region model generally we find that efficiency losses occur if there are signals that guide the first period budget into a region that later turns out to be suboptimal if both time periods had been considered right from the beginning to illustrate the conservation relevance of our findings we present potential efficiency losses through path dependence in the hypothetical case of applying offsets to conserving the endangered maculinea teleius butterfly near the city of landau in germany

learning by doing and the emergence of monopoly abstract the implications of learning by doing on the structure of an industry are studied through an example where firms are assumed to be non identical it is shown that under certain circumstances the industry may experience growing concentration leading eventually to monopoly a comparison between the effects of learning by doing in a socially managed industry and in a cournot duopoly is made

the adoption of voluntary environmental management programs in mexico first movers as institutional entrepreneurs this article analyzes the adoption of voluntary environmental management programs by firms operating in mexico mexican firms can obtain national certification clean industry and or international certification iso 14001 based on institutional entrepreneurship theory we posit that the role played by first movers as institutional entrepreneurs is crucial if these programs are to become established with sufficient strength and appeal this understanding is especially important in an environment where more than one program can be adopted we tested several hypotheses on the behaviors of 1328 facilities operating in mexico half of which 664 had certified environmental management programs of the 664 certified facilities 217 were classified as early adopters three variables predicted the likelihood of a facility being an early adopter 1 connected to international market 2 in the maquila sector and 3 linked to an industry association that offers free resources

property rights and the role of the state evidence from the horn of africa this study applies extant theories of property rights change to three land tenure systems in imperial ethiopia two of the areas underwent changes in property rights after experiencing changes in the value of land one did not a data set of litigation over land rights is used in conjunction with case studies to understand the mechanisms motivating or impeding property rights change amendments to the role of the state are suggested and two conclusions are reached 1 that movement towards greater specificity of land rights did not always occur and 2 the changes in property rights that occurred were imposed from above rather than occurring endogenously where property rights changes did not occur they appear to have been blocked by the state which was more concerned with political survival than with revenue maximisation

managerial prescriptions under the resource based view of strategy the example of motivational techniques working from the perspective of the resource based view of strategy this paper addresses whether academics consultants and other sources of general managerial prescriptions can affect firms long run rent streams the answer is affirmative to demonstrate this i discuss the use of motivational techniques as a well understood and common managerial choice that may affect a firm s chance of generating rents this paper interprets extant empirical research on goal setting and discusses the conceptualization of temporal rent patterns i build upon an empirical finding in goal setting research to compare the temporal patterns of rents for managerial choices embedded in path dependent vs path independent processes 1998 john wiley sons ltd

is demand pulled innovation equally important in different groups of firms previous empirical literature has tested the demand pull hypothesis and found that innovation may be driven by output using a balanced panel of 216 italian manufacturing firms 1995 2000 and checking for the path dependent nature of r d we find a role of sales in inducing r d however the demand pull effect plays a varying role for different sub samples of firms exporting firms liquidity constrained firms not subsidised firms and those not heading a group seem to be sensitive to sales in deciding r d these results have been obtained using a least squares dummy variable corrected estimator a recent panel data technique suitable for small samples

the end of economic growth a contracting threshold hypothesis this paper argues that gdp growth in both developed and developing countries has associated costs that can outweigh the benefits and thus reduce sustainable well being this conclusion is based upon the findings of empirical applications of the genuine progress indicator gpi to a range of countries in the asia pacific region the studies conducted on seven asia pacific countries indicate that in the case of five of the seven nations more recent gdp growth has reduced the sustainable well being experienced by the average citizen residing within them moreover the threshold point at which the costs of gdp growth outweigh the benefits appears to be contracting i e occurring at a much lower per capita level of gdp this paper therefore introduces a new contracting threshold hypothesis as the economies of the asia pacific region and the world collectively expand in a globalised economic environment there is a contraction over time in the threshold level of per capita gdp as a consequence the threshold point confronting growth late comers i e developing countries occurs at a much lower level of sustainable welfare than what wealthy nations currently enjoy the consequences of this for developing countries are clearly significant and require a new approach to economic development

adaptation as information restriction the hot stove effect individuals and social systems are often portrayed as risk averse and resistant to change such propensities are characteristically attributed to individual organizational and cultural traits such as risk aversion uncertainty avoidance discounting and an unwillingness to change this paper explores an alternative interpretation of such phenomena we show how the reproduction of successful actions inherent in adaptive processes such as learning and competitive selection and reproduction results in a bias against alternatives that initially may appear to be worse than they actually are in particular learning and selection are biased against both risky and novel alternatives because the biases are products of the tendency to reproduce success that is inherent in the sequential sampling of adaptation they are reduced whenever the reproduction of success is attenuated in particular when adaptation is slowed made imprecise or recalled less reliably the propensity to engage in risky and new activities is increased these protections against the error of rejecting potentially good alternatives on inadequate experiential evidence are costly however they increase the likelihood of persisting with alternatives that are poor in the long run as well as in the short run

economic performance through time prize lecture to the memory of alfred nobel december 9 1993 this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the valuation of complex derivatives by major investment firms empirical evidence this article examines the auction of a portfolio of collateralized mortgage obligations cmos to major broker dealers and institutional investors the unique data set allows us to analyze a number of important empirical questions related to the valuation of cmos by the bidders and the elasticity of demand for the securities the results reveal that the valuations differ substantially implying a significant elasticity of demand this article is designed to shed light on two related questions first it extends the work of bagwell 1991 1992 brown and ryngaert 1990 and bradley desai and kim 1988 among others on shareholder heterogeneity and the elasticity of the demand for financial assets to date the empirical research on investor heterogeneity has focused on common stock this article supplements previous work by examining an auction of another class of securities complex collateralized mortgage obligations cmos to major securities dealers and institutional investors second it provides perspective on fixed income valuation models in the spirit of cox ingersoll and ross 1985 and black derman and toy 1990 virtually all of these models even those that specify relatively complex interest rate processes assume homogeneous beliefs this implies that within the constraints imposed by estimation error sophisticated investors should place equal values on fixed income securities bagwell observes that investors can be heterogeneous along several dimensions first heterogeneity can be induced by tax rules to the extent that different investors are taxed in different ways their demand for securities will be affected second transaction costs can cause heterogeneity by driving a wedge between buyers sellers and owners of a security third investors can differ in their assessments of the value of a security either because they possess different information or because they analyze that information in different ways fourth investors can face different nontradeable risks and thus can have different assessments of the value of a security depending on how it interacts with these risks finally it has been suggested by lee shleifer and thaler 1991 among others that investors may differ for idio

the reflection effect for higher order risk preferences higher order risk preferences are important determinants of economic behaviour we apply insights from behavioural economics we measure higher order risk preferences for pure gains and losses we find a reflection effect not only for second order risk preferences like kahneman and tversky 1979 but also for higher order risk preferences we find risk aversion prudence and intemperance for gains and much more risk loving preferences imprudence and temperance for losses these findings are at odds with a universal preference for combining good with bad or good with good which previous results suggest may underlie higher order risk preferences

public private partnerships and collective action in high value fruit and vegetable supply chains accessing developed country food markets entails meeting stringent food safety requirements food retailers impose protocols relating to pesticide residues field and pack house operations and traceability to enable smallholders to remain competitive in such a system new institutional arrangements are required in particular public private partnerships can play a key role in creating farm to fork linkages that can satisfy market demands for food safety while retaining smallholders in the supply chain furthermore organized producer groups monitoring their own food safety standards through collective action often become attractive to buyers who are looking for ways to ensure traceability and reduce transaction costs this paper compares the ways in which small producers of fruits and vegetables in kenya and india have coped with increased demands for food safety from their main export markets

the social performance and distributional consequences of contract farming an equilibrium analysis of the arachide de bouche program in senegal abstract this paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of a contract farming program in senegal we examine the access of poorer community members to contracts and the effect of the program on the income of participants the program performs very well on both counts participants and nonparticipants are indistinguishable by wealth measures and farmers increase their income substantially by participating in the program we attribute the former to the program s mobilization of local information through its use of village intermediaries permitting the substitution of social collateral for physical collateral and making the program more accessible to the poor

banning the bulb institutional evolution and the phased ban of incandescent lighting in germany much academic attention has been directed at analysing energy efficiency investments through the lens of behavioural failure these studies have challenged the neoclassical framing of regulation which emphasises the efficiency benefits of price based policy underpinned by the notion of rational individual self mastery the increasing use of a regulatory ban on electric lamps in many countries is one of the most recent and high profile flash points in this dialectic of freedom versus the state in the public policy discourse this paper interrogates this debate through a study of electric lamp diffusion in germany it is argued that neoclassical theory and equilibrium analysis is inadequate as a tool for policy analysis as it takes the formation of market institutions such as existing regulations for granted further still it may be prone to encourage idealistic debates around such grand narratives which may in practice simply serve those who benefit most from the status quo instead we argue for an evolutionary approach which we suggest offers a more pragmatic framing tool which focuses on the formation of market institutions in light of shifting social norms and political goals in our case progress towards energy efficiency and environmental goals

theorizing path dependence a review of positive feedback mechanisms in technology markets regional clusters and organizations the concept of path dependence has often been criticized as vague and only narrowly applicable although we can find some very refined definitions of the concept we also find a wide range of empirical phenomena being described as path dependent we argue that more detailed accounts of the positive feedback mechanisms that form paths can take path dependence beyond this state of being overdetermined but under specified reviewing three well described cases of path dependent dynamics in technology markets regional clustering and organizations we define a core set of positive feedback mechanisms that constitute path dependence at different analysis levels and clarify the relationship between positive feedback and increasing returns we show that path dependent processes that is processes driven by positive feedback that veer toward rigidity or lock in can be but do not have to be found under many labels including structural inertia coevolution or institutional persistence we conclude that a precise definition of path dependence does not need to be at odds with the concept s widespread use in understanding organizational and industrial development processes copyright 2013 the author 2012 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

technological change in economic models of environmental policy a survey this paper provides an overview of the treatment of technological change in economic models of environmental policy numerous economic modeling studies have confirmed the sensitivity of mid and long run climate change mitigation cost and benefit projections to assumptions about technology costs in general technical progress is considered to be a noneconomic exogenous variable in global climate change modeling however there is overwhelming evidence that technological change is not an exogenous variable but to an important degree endogenous induced by needs and pressures hence some environmenteconomy models treat technological change as endogenous responding to socio economic variables three main elements in models of technological innovation are i corporate investment in research and development ii spillovers from r d and iii technology learning especially learning by doing the incorporation of induced technological change in different types of environmental economic models tends to reduce the costs of environmental policy accelerates abatement and may lead to positive spillover and negative leakage

capitalism as an engine of progress economists from marx to schumpeter have touted capitalism as an engine of technical progress but what kind of an engine is it what are its key components how does it work

inefficient standard adoption inertia and momentum revisited i introduction since the establishment of the theory of network effects economists have been concerned with the question of whether a market with network effects will tend to settle on the socially optimal standard it has been postulated that markets may exhibit excess inertia once a technological standard is in place a new superior standard may not displace it because of installed base effects alternatively markets may exhibit excess momentum consumers may adopt a new standard too quickly ignoring the stranding effect they are having on previous users similar issues arise in the adoption of language and social norms the literature has investigated various conditions under which one of these inefficiencies arises such inefficiencies are of particular concern for open technologies such as the qwerty and dvorak keyboards 1 the situation is somewhat different when individual firms own standards in that case a simple argument seems to indicate that there is no possibility that an inefficient standard will persist if a new standard is superior in any objective sense there are gains to be made from switching to it once the standard has been adopted the firm can appropriate these gains therefore the firm has incentive to lower the initial price enough to induce adoption of the standard the preceding argument is made in liebowitz and margolis 1999 and repeated in spulber 2002 spulber expresses a general skepticism about the likelihood of inefficiencies when property rights are defined and markets exist critics might claim that previous models that imply inefficient standard adoption are unrealistic in some way and that if such models were modified slightly the inefficiency would disappear i reconsider the issue of inefficient standard adoption using a parsimonious yet compelling model assuming only that there are successive generations of finitely lived consumers that preferences are heterogeneous and that there are network effects among users adoption decisions can be inefficient this is true even if consumers can coordinate efficiently within a generation and a firm can act as a coordinating device across generations the model presented here generates some of the same results found in other papers collectively but in a more general setting and with more robust results if there is an established standard and a superior alternative emerges no single generation of consumers will be willing to switch to the new standard if the switching cost the loss of network benefit from breaking with past users is too high it may be that the benefits to future generations of consumers are large enough that from a social standpoint it would be efficient for one generation to adopt the new standard even if it is privately optimal for that generation to retain the old standard on the other hand the current generation considers only its own switching cost and not the cost it imposes on the previous generation leading to potential overadoption of new technology even for proprietary standards it is not clear that the incentive of the firm to induce adoption matches the social incentive in particular if consumer preferences are heterogeneous the firm will not be able to price in such a way to extract all of the additional surplus gained from the new standard on the other hand the firm will be able to appropriate some of the surplus generated by the network effect itself which is present for any standard and thus does not affect the social incentive to change standards it is not possible to address this issue with a two period model as in some of the previous literature see for example choi 1994 choi and thum 1998 katz and shapiro 1986 if a new technology is introduced in the second period but then the game ends the welfare of future generations of consumers is neglected 2 this article also differs from previous infinite horizon models of technology adoption

induced adoption and externalities in the regional diffusion of information technology antonelli c 1990 induced adoption and externalities in the regional diffusion of information technology reg studies 24 31 40 information technology can be considered as a set of complex radical innovations which continues to evolve and has a major impact both within the plant and the office in such a context its regional diffusion is likely to be determined by relevant externalities together with the effects of a wage induced process of localized technological change and adoption data on the territorial distribution of fax machines and modems show that the levels of diffusion of information technology in italy is highly uneven favouring central regions endowed with higher levels of fixed and human capital and consequently income the econometric analysis confirms that diffusion levels of both fax and modems across provinces are significantly associated with the level of wages as is to be expected from the induced adoption hypothesis and from the existence of external factors such as the presence

demand dynamics with socially evolving preferences in this work we first identify a few stylized facts concerning microconsumption acts second building on them we develop a simple model of boundedly rational consumers who endogenously evolve their preferences via both innovation and social imitation third we explore some statistical properties of the demand patterns generated by the model which despite its simplicity are surprisingly in line with the empirical evidence these results we suggest bring encouraging support to microfoundations of demand theory based on cognitive and behavioral foundations more in tune with the psychological and sociological evidence based on heterogeneous agents who are much less rational and much more social than in standard theory and who collectively discover along the way what they like within a growing universe of available commodities

power steering the canadian automotive industry the 1965 canada usa auto pact and political exchange abstract in the 1965 canada usa auto pact the automotive companies were required to maintain specified levels of assembly activity in canada this restriction and subsequent events such as the correlation of a shift in employment to canada and the widening of pay disparities between american and canadian workers the concentration of research in the united states despite canadian fiscal incentives and the differences in the rescue packages offered to chrysler by the two governments cannot be explained by conventional economic theory the paper demonstrates that they can be explained as mutually advantageous accommodations to different evaluations of political outputs reflecting endowments and domestic economic interests

sectoral systems of innovation and production the concept sectoral system of innovation and production provides a multidimensional integrated and dynamic view of sectors it is proposed that a sectoral system is a set of products and the set of agents carrying out market and non market interactions for the creation production and sale of those products a sectoral systems has a specific knowledge base technologies inputs and demand agents are individuals and organizations at various levels of aggregation they interact through processes of communication exchange co operation competition and command and these interactions are shaped by institutions a sectoral system undergoes change and transformation through the co evolution of its various elements 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

technology choice and timing with positive network effects abstract when two competing and incompatible products coexist in a market potential users face a choice between the two products and the alternative of deferring the decision this paper examines the choice between the two substitutes where each one is subject to a positive network effect that is a user of one of the products experiences an increase in the value for each additional person using the same product we examine this buy or wait problem either for an individual or a manager making the investment on behalf of a firm by formulating and analyzing a decision theoretic model to model the stochastic evolution of market share we build on the generalized polya urn of arthur et al arthur w b ermoliev y m kaniovski y m 1987 path dependent processes and the emergence of macro structure european journal of operational research 30 3 294 303 allowing for composition of the market to affect not just the relative market shares but also the absolute growth rate of the market we show that the optimal strategy is defined by a pair of market penetration thresholds that depend on the market composition looking at the effect of the network effects on the optimal strategy we find that more pronounced network effects can either raise or lower the penetration thresholds

the dynamic implications of increasing returns technological change and path dependent inefficiency this paper addresses the issue of path dependent selection and inefficiency counterfactual methods and the empirical evidence employed in this research trajectory the general message is basically that the theoretical argument to prove path dependent inefficiency is relatively straightforward while empirical demonstrations as well as the analysis of welfare implications are much more difficult in the first section we briefly state the basic argument explaining how localized learning leads to an incomplete exploration of the variety distribution of a technology we then synthesize the most interesting historical studies which get potential regret results and ask whether these results suggest a large welfare loss to try to answer this question we start from the critical arguments of liebowitz and margolis to discuss the theoretical and empirical difficulties of establishing path dependent inefficiency

social capital and the linkages of high tech companies to the military defense system is there a signaling mechanism this study investigates linkages of new israeli high tech companies to the military and defense system we examine the impact of social capital signaling and learning spillovers on resource acquisition in terms of investments and the financial performance of companies with and without linkages social capital signaling and learning spillovers are examined as they impact individual and organizational resource acquisition and performance of 200 new israeli high tech companies the study contributes to the existing literature of entrepreneurship by suggesting the relevance of knowledge spillovers signaling theory and social capital to the context of the interface between defense and civilian spheres

measuring multivariate risk preferences in the health domain we investigate univariate and multivariate risk preferences for health longevity and wealth we measure attitudes toward correlation and attitudes toward higher order dependence structures such as cross prudence and cross temperance making use of the risk apportionment technique proposed by eeckhoudt et al 2007 for multivariate gains we find correlation aversion and cross prudence in longevity and wealth for losses we observe correlation seeking and cross imprudence we do not find clear evidence for cross temperance our results indicate that longevity and wealth are considered to be substitutes for gains but not for losses second univariate higher order risk preferences are comparable for longevity and wealth although somewhat closer to linearity for wealth third we find evidence that attitudes toward dependence structures in the health domain are sign dependent

a model of corporate donations to open source under hardware software complementarity in recent years there has been an increasing diffusion of open source projects as well as an increasing interest among scholars on the topic open source software oss is developed by communities of programmers and users usually sponsored by private firms is available in the public domain and redistributed for free we present a model of open and closed source software competition in a differentiated oligopoly of hardware software bundles hardware and software are complement goods and oss is financed by hardware firms results are several hardware firms contribute to the development of open source although the level of contribution is not socially optimal oss availability has a positive impact on hardware firms profits and prices whereas the closed source producer is harmed by oss competition furthermore we analyze under what circumstances hardware firms have incentives in investing in os projects the model can explain the increasing participation in os projects of several embedded device producers and server producers although we focus on hardware this model can be generalized to a wide range of complementary goods and services such as it training web hosting and information and communication technology ict consultancy services

the economics of convention c onventions regulate much of economic and social life yet they have received surprisingly little attention from economists by a convention we mean a pattern of behavior that is customary expected and self enforcing everyone conforms everyone expects others to conform and everyone has good reason to conform because conforming is in each person s best interest when everyone else plans to conform lewis 1969 familiar examples include following rules of the road adhering to conventional codes of dress and using words with their conventional meanings conventions with direct economic implications include species of money and credit industrial and technological standards accounting rules and forms of economic contracts indeed it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that almost all economic and social institutions are governed to some extent by convention the main feature of a convention is that out of a host of conceivable choices only one is actually used this fact also explains why conventions are needed they resolve problems of indeterminacy in interactions that have multiple equilibria indeed from a formal point of view we may define a convention as an equilibrium that everyone expects in interactions that have more than one equilibrium the economic significance of conventions is that they reduce transaction costs imagine the inconvenience if whenever two vehicles approached one another the important exceptions are sugden 1986 and ullman margalit 1977 the interested reader might also refer to the symposium on social norms that appeared in the fall 1989 issue of this journal with articles by sugden 1989 and elster 1989

the two faces of market support how deployment policies affect technological exploration and exploitation in the solar photovoltaic industry the recent years have seen a strong rise in policies aiming to increase the diffusion of clean energy technologies while there is general agreement that such deployment policies have been very effective in bringing technologies to the market it is less understood how these policies affect technological innovation to shed more light on this important question we conducted comparative case studies with a global sample of 9 firms producing solar photovoltaic pv modules complemented by in depth interviews with 16 leading pv industry experts we propose that on the one hand policy induced market growth serves as an important catalyst for innovative activity as it raises the absolute level of firm investments in technological exploration on the other hand however deployment policies create an incentive for firms pursuing more mature technologies to shift their balance between exploitation and exploration toward exploitation firms focusing on less mature technologies cannot tap the potentials of exploitative learning to the same extent as those with more mature technologies therefore stimulating strong market growth may raise the barrier to market entry for less mature technologies we conclude that when designing deployment policies great care should be taken to avoid adverse effects on technological diversity and a premature lock in into more established technologies

bad eggs learning by doing and the choice of technology we model long run economic development through technology adoption under scientific uncertainty about environmental effects there are four possible long run equilibria in a socially planned economy high growth adopt rapidly but abandon damaging technologies once revealed ddt cfcs cautious brake the introduction of new technologies to avoid mistakes genetically modified organisms no growth halt technological progress to preserve secondary knowledge and collapse adopt rapidly without ever abandoning damaging technologies in the base parameterization a short sighted social planner chooses the cautious strategy a far sighted planner chooses the high growth strategy unless damages are irreversible in which case the cautious strategy again dominates regulatory options in the market economy are investigated pollution taxes do not affect the firm s level of precaution if they can only be applied after the adopting firm has reaped the benefits however they do encourage the abandonment of damaging technologies liability rules do affect precaution but may lead to excessive caution or even a no growth trap

obtaining strategic advantage from being imitated when can encouraging clones pay an important business strategy research theme concerns finding ways to minimize competition faced by the firm this paper however focuses on a different set of situations the model developed suggests that an innovator s best strategy may be to encourage clones of its product when a network externality is present key factors to consider in assessing whether encouraging cloning is the innovator s best strategy are 1 the benefit to be derived in terms of added user base contributed by the clone sales traded off against 2 the unit sales that will be lost to the clones these factors in turn depend upon the strength of the network effect and the degree to which the innovator s product quality is perceived by consumers to be superior to the clone s the model further suggests that both the innovator and clone earn their highest payoffs when the clone takes the lead in price setting i e when the clone establishes its own price by considering for each price it might set how the innovator will react to that price and the innovator as price follower responds to the price the clone chooses the paper demonstrates that the clone leader innovator follower situation represents the unique nash equilibrium in price setting strategies a central implication is that when operating in a network externality environment instead of a problem to be avoided clones may be valuable assets to an innovating firm building up the user base for the innovator s technology by bringing lower valuing consumers into the market which in turn makes the innovator s product more attractive to high and medium valuing purchasers thus when the above described conditions hold being cloned can be more profitable for an innovating firm than dominating the market alone

regional worlds from related variety in regional diversification to strategic coupling in global production networks this annual lecture paper bridges two influential but parallel literature strands on evolutionary economic geography eeg and global production networks gpn it argues that both strands are prem

optimal patenting and licensing of financial innovations recent court decisions starting with the state street decision in 1998 allow business methods to be patentable and now give financial institutions the option to seek patent protection for financial innovations this new patentability paradigm and the heterogeneity of characteristics associated with financial innovations pose an immediate decision problem for senior management what to patent we present a parsimonious decision framework that answers this question we show that for innovations with certain characteristics it is optimal not to patent even if the option of patenting and licensing is available our model emphasizes the role of embedded real options that arise from certain types of financial innovations the model provides an explanation of observed patenting behavior of financial institutions and the success of a wide class of innovations including swaps credit derivatives and pricing algorithms

open knowledge disclosure an overview of the evidence and economic motivations abstract this paper reviews current literature on open knowledge disclosure strategies used by firms it is usually acknowledged that for an innovative firm that does not benefit from a natural protection such as lead time advance the best strategy is to keep an innovation secret as long as possible or to protect it through an exclusive patent however in apparent contrast to this traditional view many studies suggest that firms often disclose important parts of their knowledge through scientific publications conferences the internet etc this paper aims to provide an overview first of the evidence supporting the existence of open knowledge disclosure and second of the economic motivations that encourage rational profit seeking firms to adopt these behaviours

technical change growth and trade new departures in institutional economics this article analyses the main theoretical and policy issues emerging from the literature on the evolutionary institutional economics of technical change the four distinguishing characteristics of which are that technology is often proprietary in nature only a part of knowledge is codifiable in handbooks blueprints patents and so on there are fundamental variations in the above two points across different technological fields and the evolution of knowledge is highly path dependent