Endogenous Innovations and Knowledge Spillovers

The recent development of endogenous growth theories has renewed the in­ terest into the sources of productivity growth of the advanced industrialized economies. The basic advance of these models is that the evolution of tech­ nological progress is explained endogeneously within the economic model. The most important concept is the idea of endogenous, market-driven inno­ vations which are seen as the basic source of technological advances. Firms develop sophisticated production techniques and new products in order to reduce costs or to stimulate demand. Equally important is the concept of knowledge spillovers from innovation activities and scale economies associ­ ated with them. External effects drive a wedge between private and social re­ turns of innovation activities, and scale economies affect the market structure. In addition, each year''s productivity increases exhibit an enormous social value. Therefore, the analysis of endogenous innovations, scale economies, and knowledge spillovers has important implications for economic policy which enhances the interest into empirical investigations of these issues. This book is a collection of theoretical and empirical work on this subject. It combines micro economic and macroeconomic issues; a special emphasis is placed on empirical applications. Much work has been devoted to the search and the preparation of appropriate data, and all models are estimated with panel data. The first two chapters take an aggregate view at the growth process.