Microfoundations Of Economic Growth

Contributors to this volume seek further understanding of the microfoundations of economic growth. The book focuses on three subjects that interested the great Austrian and Harvard economist, Joseph A. Schumpeter--innovation, technological change, and economic growth. These papers were presented at the 1996 meeting of the International Schumpeter Society.

Acclaim for the first edition: ÔThis is a well-written, provocative book, featuring much new material, original data analyses and interesting insights. Despite the proliferation of books on various aspects of services, there is nothing quite like it around. In particular, examination of the challenges that the growth of services presents to conventional economics is very valuable.Õ Ð Ian Miles, University of Manchester, UK ÔThis is an intriguing book that contains many interesting ways of conceptualising service from the perspective of economics. It makes a number of important contributions to the academic literature. It is one of the very few books and it might even be the only book to be written by an economist on the economics of services Ð it is thus a pioneer work and is of value in that it attempts to bring together the work that economists have done on services.Õ Ð John Bryson, University of Birmingham, UK Despite the fact that services have overtaken industry in terms of employment and GDP in developed countries, rigorous economic study of the service sector remains seriously neglected. The first edition of The Economics of Services initiated a redress of this oversight. Fully revised and updated, the second edition of this highly acclaimed textbook should be required complimentary reading to mainstream microeconomics textbooks for graduate students of economics and for advanced courses in labour, urban and regional economics, economic geography and economic history. The text emphasizes the distinction between intermediate producer services and final consumer services. Many of the former are traded in global markets much like material goods in general, whilst the markets for consumer services are markedly local. This requires quite different micro-foundations in each case. Other key issues explored include the productivity development and quality of service measurements, and the key role of urbanization for service sector growth. The critical issues for the future of the real economy beyond the financial crisis are also analysed in depth, and the author illustrates how a better understanding of the nature of the service economy is necessary for policy innovation with a view to regenerating the welfare state.

In economics, business, and government policy, innovation policy requires the creation of new approaches based on insight in what happens in innovation processes, on the micro level of people, firms and interaction between them. In innovation policy it should also be recognized that innovation entails a whole range of activities beyond R&D, such as entrepreneurship, design, commercialization, organization, collaboration and the diffusion of knowledge and innovations . This edited volume explores the roles of individuals and organizations involved in the creation and application of innovations. Covering topics as diverse as the macro-economic importance of innovation, theories of knowledge and learning, entrepreneurship, education and research, organizational innovation, networks and regional innovation systems, Micro-Foundations for Innovation Policy provides critical insights into the development of innovation policy.

In this new volume it is argued that network effects are much more common than usually assumed, and that they have a profound impact on many aspects of economic systems, especially technological change and economic growth. The analysis and modelling of this interrelationship is the central focus of this book. While there exists a vast body of literature on economic growth, the theories put forward so far have had limited success in explaining observed patterns of economic growth. ‘Growth cycles’ in particular continue to elude standard economic models, though evolutionary economics has made some progress. Seeking to fill the gap, Torsten Heinrich’s innovative approach uses microeconomics to explain heterogeneous sectoral dynamics on the meso level, and then aggregating these to observed macroeconomic growth rates. In this way, it is shown that an evolutionary model of technological change with network effects can explain not only commonly observed asymmetric industry structures, monopolies and oligopolies but also ‘growth cycles’. The book includes a comprehensive account of the most influential economic growth theories, a discussion of the research on network effects as well as an introduction to the methodology, the model, and a case study on the recent emergence of information and communication technology. This important new volume will be relevant to all those interested in theoretical economics, growth theory, innovation economics, agent based modelling and industry dynamics.

Most macroeconomists agree that we live in the age of microfoundations. The recent worldwide financial crisis may have emboldened critics of this microfoundational orthodoxy, but it remains the dominant view that macroeconomic models must go beyond supply and demand functions to the level of individual decision-making, taking into account the general dynamic environment where agents live. Microfoundations Reconsidered seeks to reassess how the relationship of micro and macroeconomics evolved over time. The highly regarded contributors to the book argue that the standard narrative of microfoundations is likely to be unreliable. They therefore re-examine the history of the relationship of microeconomics and macroeconomics, starting from their emergence as self-consciously distinct fields within economics in the early 1930s. They seek to go beyond the conventional history that is often told and written by practicing economists. From different perspectives they challenge the association of microfoundations with Robert Lucas and rational expectations and offer both a more complete and a deeper reading of the relationship between micro and macroeconomics. Microfoundations Reconsidered is a valuable addition to the macroeconomic research literature. It is ideally suited to students, scholars, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in macro and microeconomics and the history of economics.

Roger Farmer is to be congratulated for editing this splendid set of essays in honour of Axel Leijonhufvud. . . I am sure that most of the readers of these essays will be excited and stimulated by their contents. Economic Record This book honors the work of the influential economist Axel Leijonhufvud. His work in macroeconomics, monetary theory and European economic history has spurred great discussion over many years, and the authors of this book comprise some of the very best economists active today. The broad influence of his work is evident in the variety of subjects his readers address. The topics range from Keynesian economics and the economics of high inflation to the micro-foundations of macroeconomics and economic history. The reader will find an intriguing compilation of ideas ranging from bankruptcy and collateral debt, the macroeconomics of broken promises, interest rate setting, growth patterns of macro models, innovation history to macroeconomics with intelligent autonomous agents. Scholars and students of economic history, Keynesian economics and alternative monetary theory will be delighted with the work inspired by this influential thinker.

This is the first full-length survey of current work which examines the compatibility of microeconomics and macroeconomics. Its particular distinction is that it makes accessible, to non-specialists, those extensive modern refinements of general equilibrium theory which are linked to macroeconomics and monetary theory. Part I traces the development and interlocking nature of two scientific research prgrams, macroeconomics and neo-Walrasian analysis. The five chapters in this part examine general equilibrium theory, Keynes' contribution, the 'neoclassical synthesis', and the Clower–Leijonhufvud contributions to questions of systemic coordination. The four chapters of Part II place recent work on the micro-foundations of macroeconomics within a taxonomic scheme of Walrasian equilibrium, Walrasian disequilibrium, Edgeworthian equilibrium, and Edgeworthian disequilibrium. Part III, a single chapter, provides an overview of the subject and ventures some conclusions.