Microfoundations Of Economic Success

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.

This book uses detailed data on individual firms and households to explore the basis behind Estonia's record as the most successful of all the EU countries over the last decade. We find that much of the reason is the greater flexibility of the Estonian economy, in both price setting in employment and wages and in consumption. Estonia is also able to adjust to shocks more rapidly and with less cost than other countries. Coupled with a favourable macroeconomic policy and a good institutional structure and legal framework, Estonia will be an example to others despite the recent downturn.

Micro-Macro Links and Microfoundations in Sociology focuses on two main issues in sociology. Firstly, how macro-conditions can explain macro-outcomes mediated by actor behaviour at the micro-level (micro-macro links). Secondly, how alternative micro-models affect macro-outcomes (microfoundations). The contributions reflect key features of micro-macro modelling in sociology as well as recent progress in this field. The chapters address core features of explanations of social phenomena using micro-macro models, the problem of cooperation, heterogeneity of actors, structural balance, opinion formation, segregation, and problems of micro-macro models that are based on rational choice assumptions. Moreover, the contributions show how different research methods can be applied fruitfully, such as laboratory experiments, equilibrium analysis, and agent-based modelling. As a result, the book can be a guide for graduate students who want to develop their skills in building micro-macro models. In addition, the book provides specialists of the different substantive research areas with up-to-date new developments in their research area. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Mathematical Sociology.

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 work challenges some of the fundamental tenets of the free market economics that have had a profound impact on public policy and the American worker. The author shows that these myths are a product of unrealistic behavioural assumptions from free market economists about the worker.

Revised Ger. translation published in 1975 under title: Makroökonomischer Formalismus und die Marktwirtschaft. Bibliography: p. 55-56.