Esben Sloth Andersen

The Nelson and Winter Models Revisited: Prototypes for Computer-Based Reconstruction of Schumpeterian Competition

The report deals with the reconstruction and further development of the models of industrial dynamics developed by Nelson and Winter and summarised in their famous 1982-book. The basic idea underlying the Nelson and Winter models is that a verbal account of Schumpeterian competition can naturally be transformed into a description of a computational process in which firms not only make short-term production decisions and investment decisions but also performs a search for new technologies. The latter search is successful in a probabilistic manner, and its successes and failures determine an evolutionary process of the industry. Although the simulation models of Nelson and Winter have played a central role the ‘take-off’ of evolutionary economics, they have never been fully documented and their differences have never been explored. The resulting problems are obvious for students who start from Nelson’s and Winter’s most famous accounts, but even for researchers with a full collection of the underlying research papers, the situation is quite confusing. The report tries to make things easier by presenting overviews of the structure of Nelson and Winter models as well as fully implemented versions of their simulation models – especially NELWIN78 based on ch. 13 of the 1982-book and NELWIN77 based on ch. 12. The report furthermore presents a computer-based environment (implemented in MAPLE V Rev2) for revision of the models and for analysis of the overwhelming number of data resulting from simulation runs.

Techno-economic Paradigms as Typical Interfaces between Producers and Users

In this paper it is suggested that techno-economic paradigms should not only be considered as means of coordination among the producers of technological knowledge but also as means of coordination between groups of producers and users of specific types of artefacts, as shared specifications of typical interfaces between the two parties. If such interfaces are simplified and standardized, the information needs of the parties will be delimited (and this is necessary in the worlds of bounded rationality à la Simon and Hayek). However, successful product innovation will often presuppose an information-rich interaction and thereby often presuppose non-standardized interfaces. In the paper these two conflicting principles are developed in order to clarify several controversial issues within the theory of innovation and evolution.

Satiation in an evolutionary model of structural economic dynamics

Abstract. This paper presents the problem of satiation of consumption and technology in relation to a model of evolutionary endogenous growth. The model represents an attempt to provide an evolutionary economic micro foundation to Pasinettis scheme of the structural economic dynamics of an economy that is based on only labour and knowledge. The micro foundation is based on a set of rules that makes endogenous the demand coefficients, the labour coefficients, and the number of available sectors. Through process innovations firms increase their productivities with respect to individual goods, but a growth slowdown takes place unless the benefits from specialisation are exploited at still higher levels. Another cause for slowdown is related to an Engelian hierarchy of goods. As the standard of living grows, existing sectors and consumption goods satiate, so new sectors need to be provided by product innovations in a sufficient pace to keep up with the labour that is displaced from old sectors.

The Economic Geography of Innovation: National systems of production, innovation, and competence building

The authors have worked on innovation systems for more than a decade. This paper is an attempt to take stock. In Section 2, we reflect upon the emergence and fairly rapid diffusion of the concept ‘national system of innovation’ as well as related concepts. In Section 3, we describe how the Aalborg-version of the concept evolved by a combination of ideas that moved from production structure towards including all elements and relationships contributing to innovation and competence building. In Section 4, we discuss the challenges involved both in a theoretical deepening of a fairly narrow version of the concept and in the movement toward the broader approach and in adapting the concept for the analysis of poor countries.

The Limits of Schumpeter's Business Cycles

Schumpeter designed Business Cycles as his major work, but it has never received much attention. The problem is partly related to its complex treatment of the theory of waveform economic evolution and the related study of the statistics and history of 150 years of capitalist evolution, but the book also makes a deliberate analytical delimitation: the emphasis on economic evolution and the placement of institutional change as an external factor. This definition of the task did not allow Schumpeter to make a full‐blown study of the history of capitalist evolution. To some extent, he overcame that problem in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, but we have to return to the works of his youth to understand his conception of the coevolutionary processes of socio‐economic life.

An Evolutionary Approach to Structural Economic Dynamics

The paper presents a model of evolutionary growth and development of an economy that produces a varying number of consumer’s goods. The economy shows an increasing standard of living in terms of advances in the consumer’s hierarchy of goods. This growth is basically determined by the research of firms both directly and because research creates productivity differentials that leads to exchange and to a restructuring of research strategies of firms.

Long Term Economic Development

Introduction.- Schumpeters Core Works Revisited.- Back to Engel?- Technological Regimes and Demand Structure in the Evolution of the Pharmaceutical Industry.- Innovation and Demand in Industry Dynamics.- Production and Financial Linkages in Inter-Firm Networks.- Does History Matter?- Innovation, Real primary Commodity Prices and Business Cycles.- Knowledge Flows in High-Tech Industry Clusters.- The International Diffusion of Biotechnology.- The Internet as a Global Production Reorganizer.- Looking Around: the Smart Way of Italian SMEs to Innovate.- Strategic Fit Between Regional Innovation Policy and Regional Innovation Systems.- Schumpeterian Patterns of Innovation and the Sources of Breakthrough Inventions.- R&D, Patents and Stock Return Volatility.- On Profit Differentials Between Persistent and Occasional Innovators.- Financial Factors and Patents.- Building Systems.- What Causes Creative Destruction?- Markets and Organizations.- Financial System and Technological Catching-Up.

Standardization, Network Economics, and IT

Standard software systems pervade our lives, both as professionals working in an organization and as private persons. Organizations and individuals alike have to make multiple decisions. What browser to use (Netscape or Explorer)? What office suite to purchase? What instant messenger to use (preferably, the one most of your friends or colleagues use; AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo represent three alternatives)? What operating system to purchase in order to protect the current IT infrastructure? What Internet search engine to purchase for the company’s intranet? Whether to buy a single, double, or triple band cellular phone depending on where you live in the U.S. and how much you travel?