With the standard innovation spillovers that innovation policy scholars are used to considering, innovators benefit one another because each individual innovator is unable to reap the full rewards from her innovations. This feature captures an important part of the innovation process, but not the whole story. Another feature is path dependence in innovation, in which the innovation choices of past innovators influence the types of innovation pursued by future innovators. Path dependence spillovers do not necessarily directly benefit innovators. Rather, they redirect innovators toward the types of technologies with the larger stock of knowledge by changing the relative profitability of different types of technologies. Redirecting technological …show more content…
For what many think were largely idiosyncratic reasons, VHS won out over Betamax, despite there being little inherent advantage of one over the other. As a result, VHS technology kept on advancing, while Betamax did not. But imagine that society later discovered that VHS, but not Betamax, produced a big negative externality. This is essentially the story of energy technology: fossil fuels have benefited from decades of innovation, which largely explains why they are cheaper than clean energy. Unless the VHS externality were catastrophic, the best way to switch from VHS to Betamax would not be to suddenly apply a large tax on VHS—that would inefficiently lead to a surge in consumer prices for videos. Rather, as we show below, the solution would be to subsidize innovation (in concert with a modest tax) so that the stock of Betamax innovation could catch up with the stock of VHS innovation—resulting in companies eventually choosing to invest in the Betamax technology by virtue of both the price signal and the stock of innovation that enables it to be made cheaply and with high …show more content…
Under these circumstances, there are four dirtytech blocks and only one cleantech block, reflecting the reality that dirtytech has a century head start on cleantech. As a result of this mismatch in knowledge stocks, dirtytech produces electricity at a much lower cost than cleantech, even in the presence of a carbon tax. Consider the incentives facing the profit-maximizing innovator. She knows that she can immediately commercialize an innovation in dirtytech because it would reduce the cost of the already-cheapest form of electricity-producing technology. Thus, she can profit in the near term. In contrast, if she innovates in cleantech, there is no guarantee of profits, at least in the near-term. A single innovation—i.e., a single innovation block—will not be enough for cleantech to overtake dirtytech as the cheapest form of energy production in the short run. Instead, energy producers will continue to rely on dirtytech—and the cleantech innovator will receive little for her efforts. Faced with such incentives, then, the profit-maximizing innovator will likely invest in dirtytech, thereby further increasing its profitability and entrenching its dominance. Of course, in a more complex model, some innovators will have such brilliant cleantech innovations that they will invest in cleantech even if the product would be far from commercialization, but the overall tendency will
Alongside the entrepreneur spirit, Innovation is the process of taking new ideas and implementing them into the market. Key word being “new”, an innovation can be sometimes viewed as the application to better solutions that meet new demand-requirements, inarticulated needs or existing market needs. Innovative ideas range from: goods, services, products, processes, services, technologies or ideas that create value for which customers will pay for. For an idea to be an innovation, it must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. This means is that one must be ready and willing put their new idea to the test. On the other hand, there is recognition that “innovation is also critical to cultural, environmental, social, and artistic progress as well” (Bullinger, 2006). With this stated, high-tech innovation is ultimately the reason why we can be thankful for the many new conveniences of the 21st century. Although we might see the forefront of innovation being very prominent in today’s world, innovation is truly nothing new. From the start of modern man times, innovative ideas have paved the way for civilization to advance and develop into what we are today and at the same time, we have barely begin to chip away at the tip of the iceberg of our true human potential. Some scholars believe that innovation is a
In fact, last year, according to industry experts, the United States reclaimed the title as the world’s leading investor in clean energy technologies, besting countries like China, India, and Germany.
This year we have seen more electric and hybrid vehicle startups than ever before.” (Morrison) Nearly everyone recognizes the benefits of the shift, both in terms of how it would help our environment in the long term, but also the economic impact it would have, (reduced gas costs, lower electric and other utilities bills... etc.) But still, many large companies work to impede the progress in favor of maintaining our dependence on fossil fuels. The American Petroleum institute has worked with many oil industry protection companies to stymie the renewable energy movement, even in some cases, “posing as environmentalist groups in order to attract the support of environmentalists while simultaneously pushing their anti-renewable agenda.” (Blankenhorn) Many of these companies striving against renewable energy also support the building of the Keystone pipeline, using the justification that the building of the pipeline would lower gas prices. But what they fail to acknowledge is the basic economic fallacy of this, “Fossil energy prices are not going to fall. The more you remove carbon-based resources from the ground, the more it costs to get more.”
It is intended both to provide thumbnail descriptions of the various intellectual property regimes to economists working in this area and to indicate where additional economic research might be useful. The other papers in this symposium provide important examples of ongoing research on the economics of intellectual property. Suzanne Scotchmer analyzes the complex effects of patent protection when innovation is cumulative. Rather than analyzing situations in which several firms vie to develop the same innovation-the approach of the "patent race" literature-her analysis examines circumstances in which only one firm can develop an initial innovation but others can also build upon it. She focuses on how the incentive to develop both the initial and subsequent inventions may be affected by the scope of patent protection. Janusz Ordover considers ways of adjusting the patent system that may help to both provide returns to the inventor, and encourage the diffusion of the innovation in the economy. His paper is part of a line of work that explores the place of the intellectual property system among the large number of institutions that affect the amount and nature of research and development that takes place. In the final paper, David
This research intends to explore innovation at an individual level, but in a context, where the roles and functions of an organization appear eminent either as a promoter or an inhibitor of innovation.
Third assumption, “Clean energy is about unleashing the potential of all these new technologies -- because we can figure some stuff out just about better than anybody else” Saying that America had the best equipment was a fallacy when we saw that a country like Morocco had put all efforts to build the greatest super solar power on the earth. In fact, it would be a fallacy to say that just the best minds were located in the United States nowadays when its levels of education dropped in many different fields compared with other state
Continued investment should be encouraged in order to develop the best technology in energy for the future. Continued investment will allow for new and exciting developments that will improve the energy industry in the long run. It will assist the industry in satisfying the growing demand and need for sustainability. There are a number of political and legal factors that are significant to the energy industry. For example, laws and government regulation on energy use could potentially affect the demand for domestic energy and thus lead to a shift in prices. However, with an increase of clean energy use, the demand for energy will not change dramatically due to laws and regulations, instead, the future prosperity of the globe will improve.
The United States is driven by capitalism, which is, “an economic system essentially based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange” (Free). This brilliant system allows for a prospering economy that is created by the people. In this system, it is common that businesses fail because profit is the driving force that keeps them going and only the strongest remain standing. While it may seem odd to link energy production to capitalism, the case can be argued that they share a connection. Energy production is a main avenue to the core of what capitalism represents. Each year, many energy producing companies profit millions of dollars since the world is dependent upon it. Considering this, these
Cap and trade is a system aimed at diminishing the rate at which carbon is emitted into the atmosphere by creating an economic system based on meeting a certain minimal threshold or paying low-emitting companies for the right to emit in their place. For example, if company A only emits half of the emissions cap, that company can sell (or trade) the remaining credits to company B, should company B choose to emit one-and-a-half times the cap. A main objection to the cap and trade system is that it is not a strong enough means by which to curb emissions of fossil fuels and is inferior to specifically stronger carbon taxes. While initially appealing, the notion of simply strengthening carbon taxes fails to properly stifle carbon emissions and to adequately incentivize “green” development in comparison to the cap and trade system, preventing carbon taxes from occupying a central role to mitigate carbon emissions.
firms It has been suggested that the disappointing performance of U.S. firms during the 1980s in technology-intensive, global markets was from failure to improve upon products and processes. It has been cited that "the U.S. makes the breakthroughs, while other countries, especially Japan, provide the follow-through." Revolutionary innovation has been contrasted with less dramatic advancements. Incremental improvement can turn products over and get more, newer models out. This may all sound dull, but the achievements can be exhilarating. American firms may have failed to follow up on their breakthroughs with such continuous improvements. Where there were successes, they were built upon a combination of breakthroughs and incremental improvements. It is the subject of yet another discourse as to what constitutes an innovation: a breakthrough or an incremental improvement, or both, and/or everything in between. 4. To take advantage of opportunity It is no surprise that surprises, often disappointing surprises, are the seeds of innovation. Take the oil companies. It is no surprise that some oil companies are becoming oil-andgas companies. Why? Because gas is found more often and in greater abundance than oil
A significant connection that emerged between the melding of the unique pathway courses and the pathway itself was the importance of harnessing innovation in a sustainable manner, not only a profit maximizing one. Each individual course built upon one another, providing me with a deeper understanding of this theme. In Economics 1, an introductory class into economics, I learned about all of the basic costs, profits and shifts in market conditions that often come with innovation. However, a key component that I had not expected was the focus on positive and negative externalities.
Technological change is a fundamental driver of economic development and performance, not only at the level of firms and industries but also economies. Innovation is the organizational process through which new
Innovation is normally used to denote the process that takes place when a product or a process is developed, from idea to market; the concept of invention only denotes the process that takes place when new ideas or solutions are generated. Baumol (2002) argues “is it possible to have lots of inventions and still lack innovations. Nevertheless, inventions are a necessary precondition for innovation”.
Bessant and Tidd (2007) are of the opinion that innovation is the translation of conceptualised ideas into commercially profitable
Companies live and breathe innovation; or, at the terribly least, notice it basic to their success. Such companies are those that others ought to emulate for they recognize that to do business, as Peter Drucker prompt in an exceedingly recent Harvard Business review article, “Every firm—not simply businesses—needs one core competence: innovation.”