Monday, January 17, 2011

Some Recent Articles on Innovation

David Warsh's latest article on Economic Principals asks whether a new round of technical innovation can tackle problems of climate change. He answers this by reviewing the contributions of previous innovation theorists like Nelson, Rosenberg, and Arrow. Worth a quick read.

Elsewhere, the Minnesota Fed's quarterly publication The Region has an interesting survey article on the relationship between trade and innovative capabilities:
“For the last decade or so, the idea that international trade might have extra benefits because it stimulates innovation by firms that export has been a strongly held view among economists,” observed Minneapolis Fed consultant Andy Atkeson in a recent interview. “But what we’re finding, in fact, is that these ‘extra benefits’ don’t really exist.”

1 comment:

  1. I was reading recently that when Portugal opened up Brazil for foreign trade in the early 1800's among the many things sent were ice skates and a lot of warm clothing. The innovators weren't the exporters, but the Brazilians who found a lot of other uses of ice skates.

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