Jesse Perla of University of British Columbia reviews, “The Growth Spiral: Money, Energy, and Imagination in the Dynamics of the Market Process” by Hans Christoph Binswanger. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Revised translation of Die Wachstumsspirale (2006). Presents a new theoretical approach to understanding the modern economy, focusing on its dynamic aspects. Discusses the difference between market and barter—money and the making of markets; capital and the firm—the firm as the engine of the market process; money and money creation in a two-stage banking system; the development of the theories of production—valid insights and shortcomings; production involving nature and imagination; income distribution in the process of growth; the move from the theory of growth to the theory of the growing economy; the economic process as a growth spiral; the increase of the present value of profits as the growth impetus; the avoidance of losses as the growth imperative; and growth opportunities and growth obstacles—the role of the state. Binswanger is with the Institute for Economy and the Environment at the University of St. Gallen.”

The least productive agents in an economy can be vital in generating growth by spurring technology diffusion. We develop an analytically tractable model in which growth is created as a positive externality from risk taking by firms at the bottom of the productivity distribution imitating more productive firms. Heterogeneous firms choose to produce or pay a cost and search within the economy to upgrade their technology. Sustained growth comes from the feedback between the endogenously determined distribution of productivity, as evolved from past search decisions, and an optimal, forward-looking search policy. The growth rate depends on characteristics of the productivity distribution, with a thicker-tailed distribution leading to more growth.

We study how opening to trade affects economic growth in a model where heterogeneous firms can adopt new technologies already in use by other firms in their home country. We characterize the growth rate using a summary statistic of the profit distribution: the mean-min ratio. Opening to trade increases the profit spread through increased export opportunities and foreign competition, induces more rapid technology adoption, and generates faster growth. Quantitatively, these forces produce large welfare gains from trade by increasing an inefficiently low rate of technology adoption and economic growth. (JEL D21, D24, F14, F43, O33)

We study how endogenous innovation and technology diffusion interact to determine the shape of the productivity distribution and generate aggregate growth. We model firms that choose to innovate, adopt technology, or produce with their existing technology. Costly adoption creates a spread between the best and worst technologies concurrently used to produce similar goods. The balance of adoption and innovation determines the shape of the distribution; innovation stretches the distribution, while adoption compresses it. On the balanced growth path, the aggregate growth rate equals the maximum growth rate of innovators. While innovation drives long‐run growth, changes in the adoption environment can influence growth by affecting innovation incentives, either directly, through licensing of excludable technologies, or indirectly, via the option value of adoption.