Reed College
Reed College

Economics 354

Economics of Science and Technology
Jeffrey Parker, Reed College
Fall 2011

 

As with most courses, this reading list only scratches the surface of the interesting and relevant literature on each of the topics we discuss. If you are interested in additional readings, please contact the instructor or search for relevant topics on EconLit.

Many of the readings that are not from books are available on the Internet. Most of these will have links directly to the reading. Note that most of these are available through online subscriptions that can be accessed only if you are connecting through the Reed network.

Starred (*) readings are not required. They are listed for those who want further detail about aspects of the topic being covered.

Table of Contents

I. Knowledge, Innovation, and Productivity Growth
II. Innovation: Theories and Evidence
III. Intellectual Property and Innovation
IV. Issues in Technological Change
V. Technology Policy and National Systems of Innovation

 

I. Knowledge, Innovation, and Productivity Growth

A. Knowledge as an economic good

  • Foray, Dominique. 2004. The Economics of Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
    • Chapter 5: Knowledge Spillovers
    • Chapter 6: Knowledge as a Public Good
  • Freeman, Chris, and Luc Soete. 1997. The Economics of Industrial Innovation, 3rd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

    • Chapter 1: Introduction (Pay special attention to Tables 1-1 and 1-3 and the related text.)

B. The nature of innovation

  • Rosenberg, Nathan. 1979. Technological Interdependence in the American Economy. Technology and Culture 20 (1):25-50. Reprinted as Chapter 3 in N. Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Mokyr, Joel. 1990. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, New York: Oxford University Press.
    • Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Petroski, Henry. 1992. The Evolution of Useful Things, New York: Alfred Knopf.
    • Chapter 4: From Pins to Paper Clips

C. Innovation and productivity growth

  • Maddison, Angus. 1994. Explaining the Economic Performance of Nations, 1820-1989. Chapter 2 in W.J. Baumol, R.R. Nelson, and E.N. Wolff, eds., Convergence of Productivity: Cross-National Studies and Historical Evidence, pp. 20-61.
  • Baumol, William J. 2010. The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press.
    • Introduction and Chapter 1
  • Hall, Bronwyn H. 2011. Innovation and Productivity. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER Working Papers, No. 17178.

D. Selected highlights from technological history

1. The Industrial Revolution
2. The 19th and 20th centuries
  • Mokyr. 1990. Lever of Riches.
    • Chapter 6: The Later Nineteenth Century: 1830-1914.
  • Mowery, David C., and Nathan Rosenberg. 1998. Paths of Innovation: Technological Change in 20th-Century America, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
    • Chapter 1: Introduction
    • Chapter 2: The Institutionalization of Innovation, 1900-90.
    • Chapter 6: The Electronics Revolution, 1947-90
  • Mokyr, Joel. 1997. Are We Living in the Middle of an Industrial Revolution? Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Review 82 (2):31-43.

II. Innovation: Theories and Evidence

A. Measuring innovative activity

  • Patel, Pari, and Keith Pavitt. 1995. Patterns of Technological Activity: Their Measurement and Interpretation. Chapter 2 in P. Stoneman, ed., Handbook of the Economics of Innovation and Technological Change, Blackwell. (An overview of some of the traditional methods of measuring innovation.)
  • Trajtenberg, Manuel. 2002. A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations. Chapter 2 in A.B. Jaffe and M. Trajtenberg, eds., Patents, Citations, and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (A discussion of one particular method: patent citations.)
  • Alexopoulos, Michelle, and Jon Cohen. 2009. Measuring Our Ignorance, One Book at a Time: New Indicators of Technological Change, 1909-1949. Journal of Monetary Economics 56 (4):450-470.

B. Microeconomic theory with innovation

  • Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper & Row, 1950.
    • Chapter VII. The Process of Creative Destruction
  • Baumol. Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship.
    • Chapters 1 through 7

C. Diffusion of innovations

D. Uncertainty, risk, and strategies of investment in innovation

  • Freeman and Soete. 1997. Economics of Industrial Innovation.
    • Chapter 10: Uncertainty, Project Evaluation, and Innovation
    • Chapter 11: Innovation and the Strategy of the Firm
  • Teece, David J. 1992. Strategies for Capturing the Financial Benefits from Technological Innovation. Chapter 7 in Technology and the Wealth of Nations, edited by N. Rosenberg, R. Landau, and D. Mowery, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

E. What kinds of firms and individuals innovate?

  • Optional Reading: Syverson, Chad. 2011. What Determines Productivity? Journal of Economic Literature 49 (2):326-365.
  • Jensen, Morten Berg, Björn Johnson, Edward Lorenz, and Bengt Åke Lundvall. 2007. Forms of Knowledge and Modes of Innovation. Research Policy 36 (5):680-693.
  • Arthur, W. Brian. 2007. The Structure of Invention. Research Policy 36 (2):274-287.
  • Freeman and Soete. 1997. Economics of Industrial Innovation.
    • Chapter 9: Innovation and Size of Firm
  • Aghion, Philippe, Nick Bloom, Richard Blundell, Rachel Griffith, and Peter Howitt. 2005. Competition and Innovation: An Inverted-U Relationship. Quarterly Journal of Economics 120 (2): 701-728.
  • Rosenberg, Nathan. 1982. Inside the Black Box:Technology and Economics. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
    • Chapter 6: Learning by Using
  • von Hippel, Eric. 1988. The Sources of Innovation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
    • Chapters 2 through 5.
  • Lester, Richard K., and Michael J. Piore. 2004. Innovation, The Missing Dimension. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
    • Introduction
    • Chapter 1: Integration in Cell Phones, Blue Jeans, and Medical Devices
    • Chapter 2: Where Do Problems Come From?
    • Chapter 3: Conversation, Interpretation, and Ambiguity

III. Intellectual Property and Innovation

A. Patents and trade secrets

B. Problems with the Current U.S. Patent System

C. The Anti-Commons Hypothesis 

D. The Economics of Open-Source Software

IV. Issues in Techological Change

A. Path Dependence: Examples and Counterexamples

  • David, Paul A. 1985. Clio and the Economics of QWERTY American Economic Review 75 (2):332-337.
  • Liebowitz, S. J., and Stephen E. Margolis. 1990. The Fable of the Keys Journal of Law and Economics 33 (1):1-25.
  • Arthur, W. Brian. 1994. Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press.
    • Chapter 1: Positive Feedbacks in the Economy
    • Chapter 2: Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Small Events

B. Networks, Standards, and Externalities

C. Financing Innovation: Venture Capital

  • Berlin, Mitchell. 1998. That Thing Venture Capitalists Do. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Review January/February:15-26.
  • Gompers, Paul A., and Josh Lerner. 2001. The Money of Invention: How Venture Capital Creates New Wealth. Cambridge: Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.
    • Chapters 2-6. 
  • Optional Reading: Da Rin, Marco, Thomas F. Hellmann, and Manju Puri. 2011. A Survey of Venture Capital Research. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER Working Papers, No. 17523. (This is a very recent update of the literature on venture capital. It is too long to be required, but will be a useful reference for anyone who wants to learn about the current state of VC research.)

D. Technological Change and the Labor Market

E. International Technology Transfer, Trade, and Economic Development

Readings for Sheldon Hochheiser's class visit on December 2

V. Technology Policies and National Systems of Innovation

  • Mokyr. 1990. Lever of Riches.
    • Chapter 7: Understanding Technological Progress
  • Nelson, Richard R. 2008. What Enables Rapid Economic Progress: What Are the Needed Institutions? Research Policy 37 (1):1-11.
  • Mowery, David C., and Nathan Rosenberg. 1993. The U.S. National Innovation System. Chapter 2 in National Innovation Systems, edited by R. R. Nelson. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 
  • Economic Report of the President, February 2005
    • Chapter 6: Innovation and the Information Economy
  • Farrell, Joseph, et al. 2005. Reviews of the 2005 Economic Report of the President. Journal of Economic Literature 43 (3):801-822. (Read pp. 801-805 only, covering Chapter 6.)
  • Liu, Feng-Chao, Denis Fred Simon, Yu-Tao Sun, and Cong Cao. 2011. China's Innovation Policies: Evolution, Institutional Structure, and Trajectory. Research Policy 40 (7):917-931.
  • *Steil, Benn, David G. Victor, and Richard R. Nelson, eds. 2002. Technological Innovation and Economic Performance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. (Chapters 3-8 describe the recent innovation performances of the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., and the Nordic countries.)
  • *Nelson, Richard R., ed. 1993. National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Contains chapters describing the national innovation systems of many countries.)
  • *There is a whole series of books (in the Reed Library) called Economic Development of XX since 1870, where XX is a country. You are encouraged to look at these for specific information on innovation policies in particular countries. See also a series of articles in the February 2002 issue of Research Policy.