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Big Steel, Invention, and Innovation

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1966 80(2), 167
Introduction: the “Schumpeterian” hypothesis, 167. — I. Oxygen steelmaking: the history of its invention and innovation, 169. — II. Some cost and profit implications of innovative lethargy, 184. — III. Conclusion, 188

Innovation and Industry Evolution

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1985 100(1), 81
The theoretical literature on innovation has been concerned with a single innovation produced by a number of identical agents. By contrast, we consider a market in which one firm is the current incumbent, while the remaining firms are challengers. Moreover, we consider a sequence of innovations, so that success does not imply that the successful firm reaps monopoly profits forever after, but only until the next, better innovation is developed. We begin with a fully optimizing behavioral model and derive the equivalent of the Schumpeterian “process of creative destruction.” That is, a firm enjoys temporary monopoly power but is soon overthrown by a more inventive challenger. The essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process…The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers' goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates [Schumpeter, 1942, pp. 82–83

Social and Private Rates of Return from Industrial Innovations

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1977 91(2), 221
I. Introduction, 221.—II. The sample of innovations, 222.—III. Estimation of social benefits: product innovations used by firms, 222.—IV. Parallel innovative efforts, time horizon, and rates of return, 226.—V. Product innovations used by households, 229.—VI. Process innovations, 231.—VII. Social and private rates of return, 233.—VIII. Factors associated with the gap between social and private rates of return, 235.—IX. Unemployment, repercussions on other markets, and future changes in technology, 238.—X. Conclusion, 239

The Management of Innovation

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1994 109(4), 1185-1209 open access
The paper analyzes the organization of the R&D activity in an incomplete contract framework. It provides theoretical foundations: (a) to understand how the allocation of property rights on innovations may affect both the frequency and the magnitude of these innovations; (b) to rationalize commonly observed features in research employment contracts, such as shop rights, trailer clauses, and the "hired for" doctrine; (c) to discuss the robustness of the so-called Schumpeterian hypotheses to endogenizing the organization of R&D; and (d) to provide a rationale for cofinancing arrangements in research activities