The paper attempts a critical assessment of both the theory and the empirical evidence on the role of appropriability and in particular of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) as incentives for technological innovation. We start with a critical discussion of the standard justification of the attribution of IPR in terms of “market failures” in knowledge generation. Such an approach we argue misses ...

The paper attempts a critical assessment of both the theory and the empirical evidence on the role of appropriability and in particular of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) as incentives for technological innovation. We start with a critical discussion of the standard justification of the attribution of IPR in terms of “market failures” in knowledge generation. Such an approach we argue misses ...

There is substantial heterogeneity across industries in the level of interdependence between new and old technologies. I propose a measure of this interdependence–an index of sequentiality in innovation–which is the transfer rate of patents in a particular industry. I find that highly sequential industries have higher profitability, higher variance of firm growth, lower exit rates, and lower ra...

Technological development is one of the main drivers in economic progress throughout the world and is strongly linked to the creation of new industries, jobs, and wealth. This thesis attempts to better understand how a specific technological field develops over time and to examine the policy implications resulting from that research. In order to research the specific field, we present a repeata...

Knowledge spillovers have been used to explain the increased rate of innovation that is found in technological clusters. The last two decades have seen an increasing interest by researchers trying to capture and measure the effects of these spillovers. However, very little is known about the mechanisms of knowledge exchange that take place in clusters. In this paper we draw on the current body ...

Technological innovation capability (TIC) is defined as a comprehensive set of characteristics of a firm that facilities and supports its technological innovation strategies. An audit to evaluate the TICs of a firm may trigger improvement in its future practices. Such an audit can be used by the firm for self assessment or third-party independent assessment to identify problems of its capabilit...

Without certainty about government policies, business decision makers are unable to assess risk and opportunity and make the trade-offs necessary for investment in new technologies. Different policies (R&D, health and safety, economic regulation) have different effects, depending on type of industry and size of firm. Because there are no established standards for judging industry performance, i...

First of all we discuss the different conceptual interpretations of sustainable development among the scientific community. Afterwards we use the epistemological concept of research traditions in order to explain this diversity of interpretations and its impacts on the prospects for technological development. As a third step we develop an approach to sustainable technology and show why such an ...

Technological change is perhaps the most powerful engine of growth in markets today. To harness this source of growth, firms need answers to key questions about the dynamics of technological change: (1) How do new technologies evolve? (2) How do rival technologies compete? and (3) How do firms deal with technological evolution? Currently, the literature suggests that a new technology seems to e...