Jean-Luc Gaffard

Markets and organizations as coherent systems of innovation

Abstract The firm, its tasks and the way in which it relates to the market appear in a different light with respect to the standard theory, within the perspective of a process of innovation interpreted as a creation of resources. The main problem with a similar process — a learning process which essentially consists of the structuring of new and totally original productive options — is to make it viable. This implies that markets and organizations should not be looked at as distinct institutions whose respective efficiency must be tested with respect to a problem of allocation of given resources, but rather considered as a system whose coherence depends on being able to render a process of creation of new specific resources viable.

Competition, Innovation And Increasing Returns ∗

When firms enjoy increasing returns in presence of a high rate of innovation, competition may obtain due to the continuous changes in demand and cost conditions even when there is no differentiation and the products of competing firms are essentially homogeneous. In this paper we intend to provide theoretical structure to this conjecture, and to confirm it by carrying out a simulation analysis in the case of two firms competing on the market.

Round-about production, co-ordination failure, technological change, and the wage-employment dilemma

Abstract The contrasting experiences of European and the US labour markets suggest to most analysts the conclusion that technological shocks would be the cause of the appearance of unemployment, and institutional settings, that generate real wage rigidity, would be the cause of its persistence. In this paper we intend to invalidate this conjecture. In order to do so we shall turn to an analytical framework which differs from the standard neo-classical one in that it allows to enlighten what happens step by step along a way that begins with the breaking of the existing steady state due to an attempt to bring about a change in technology.

The Diversity of European Regions and the Conditions for a Sustainable Economic Growth

We intend in this paper to understand the problems underlying the obvious empirical diversity of economic growth within European regions. More especially, the focus will be on the institutional and organisational determinants of this territorial diversity in a global context that exhibits nevertheless a continuous and sustained economic growth. In a first part, we discuss some analytical implications of this diversity and focus on an analytical framework aiming at defining the conditions at which a sustainable economic growth can be obtained for European regions. In a second part, we provide some empirical illustration, based on recent research financed by the MONITOR/FAST European programme.

Intertemporal complementarity and money in an economy out of equilibrium

The role of money clearly stands up in a truly irreversible process of economic change, like the building up of an altogether new productive capacity. Money has an essential role in this process, although not in the usual sense of modifying the real equilibria of the economy. As a matter of fact the problem to be faced in the context considered-where focus is on the process of change in itself rather than on its outcome-is theviability of the process of change. This paper shows that it is indeed the availability of financial resources at the right moment during the process that determines its viability, and that this stresses the fact that, out of equilibrium,real choices cannot be separated from financial decisions.

Innovation and Growth: The Relationship between Short- and Long-term Properties of Processes of Economic Change

Endogenous growth theory focuses on changes in input—output relations in order to bring to light the endogenous sources of growth. This is so whether an increase in the saving rate and hence in the fraction of output invested is considered, as in the simplest models, or a diversion of resources into R&D so as to speed up the process of innovation is instead taken into account, as in the most sophisticated ones. Different productive structures are required to sustain different growth rates, but the appearance of a productive capacity with a different structure, or the production of a new technology, are not simply the matter of a different input/output relationship: allocation of resources is just the preliminary step of a process through which these changes will be brought about: ‘The hard part is to model what happens then’ (Solow, 1994, p. 52). A shift of resources, which equilibrium models automatically identify with the result that it should bring about, may instead generate a very complex dynamics that can even lead the economy to a collapse.

Structure and cycles

Abstract On the basis of a Neo-Austrian representation of the production process, we show how recurrent cycles can emerge from a distortion of productive capacity,which hamper the viability of changes that imply structural modifications. Even the quickest and most complete adaptation of the structure of productive capacity cannot prevent the economy from bearing fluctuations: it can only make them regular.

Disparités locales et crise économique éclairages préliminaires

L’etude empirique des zones d’emploi sur donnees d’entreprises montre que les performances de ces zones ne sont exclusivement attribuables ni a leur structure sectorielle ni a la phase du cycle economique. Il existe des effets propres a chaque territoire qui expliqueraient valeur ajoutee, investissement et emploi. Ces effets s’inscrivent dans un contexte de changement structurel qui se dessine au detriment des industries manufacturieres et au benefice des activites dites de services de haute technologie.

Profils de l’investissement et divergences de performances entre l’Allemagne et la France

L’etude empirique comparative montre que la composition de l’investissement compte bien davantage que son niveau global. C’est moins le taux d’investissement que la nature des investissements effectues et leur degre de complementarite qui affectent naturellement la performance des entreprises et de l’economie.

Concurrence et innovation: un défi pour l'Union européenne

Les divergences reelles de performances economiques entre les pays de la zone euro rendent necessaire de definir une politique economique orientee vers la re-industrialisation de certaines regions en Europe. Dans un monde caracterise par l’irreversibilite des investissements et l’imperfection des informations de marche, les reformes structurelles devraient consister a etablir un ensemble de mesures destinees a soutenir a la fois la concurrence et la cooperation entre les differents acteurs de l’innovation, et de permettre la reussite des strategies des entreprises. Cela requiert de reconsiderer les politiques nationales et europeennes de soutien a la croissance, c’est-a-dire, la politique industrielle, la politique de la concurrence, la politique du marche du travail, la politique regionale, la politique financiere. Cependant, un changement du paysage industriel de l’Europe ne sera possible qu’a la condition qu’une nouvelle politique macroeconomique previenne la destruction inappropriee de capacites productives.