ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- UGO RIZZO
- Credits
- 8
- Curriculum
- Green economy and sustainability
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- SECS-P/06
Training objectives
- The course aims at: 1) providing a solid background in economics of innovation, and 2) highlighting the main topics in the literature of economics of innovation.
During the course, the student acquire the following competences: relative to the first objective, the course covers the main issues related to technological change and technical progress: definitions, sources of innovation, indicators for measuring innovation, methodological issues. As for the second objective, the course addresses some specific issues closely related to the economics of innovation: entrepreneurship, innovative start-ups, technology transfer, economic effects of innovations, and measurements, internazionalization.
At the end of the course the student will have acquired the following skills and capabilities: learn how to recognize and measure the innovation process, also according to the different nature of the innovation and the contexts under scrutiny; comprehend the heterogeneity of the variety of innovative processes; recognize and analyse the main indicators that characterize an innovative process; know the tools and strategies to protect innovation and their main advantages and disadvantages. Prerequisites
- no prerequisite
Course programme
- The course aims to provide students with the tools for the analysis and learning of the main concepts and developments in economics of innovation. The main topics will be covered through a composition of scientific contributions selected by the lecturer, and made available in the course syllabus.
The course will address the following topics:
- Definition, basic concepts and sources of innovation;
- Historical-economic proposals on innovation;
- Networks and Standards;
- Theory of recombination;
- Diffusion of innovation;
- Open Innovation and collaborations;
- Economics of patents;
- Economics of science;
- Entrepreneurship;
- General purpose technologies;
- Innovation and employment;
- Innovation policies;
- Innovation and growth;
- Innovation and development;
- Innovation and growth;
- Geography of innovation. Didactic methods
- Lectures
Learning assessment procedures
- The exam is divided in two parts. The first part of the exam consists in writing an essay following the rules/methods described and reported in the course webpage and on the classroom of the course. The essay will have to address one of the topics covered in the course. The student can choose a title from a list made available by the teacher at the beginning of the course, reported together with the guidelines for the elaboration of the essay.
The second part of the exam is oral with open questions and will partly focus on the topics covered in the essay and partly on the other topics of the course.
The essay will contribute 50% of the final grade, while the other 50% will be determined by the oral exam.
The essay must be delivered in pdf format by email to the teacher according to the deadlines identified in the essay guidelines document.
For attending students (by attending students we mean students who attend at least 75% of the lessons in the presence) a group exercise in class is foreseen: realization of a business idea through the application of the business model canvas and presentation through the 'pitch' formula. The carrying out of this test will give the right to an increase in the exam score up to two points compared to the mark obtained from the exam. Reference texts
- Definition, basic concepts and sources of innovation:
Swann, G. M. P. (2009). Chapter 3. Basic concepts in innovation - in Swann, G. M. P. (2009). The economics of innovation: an introduction. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Swann, G. M. P. (2009). Chapter 4. Process innovation - in Swann, G. M. P. (2009). The economics of innovation: an introduction. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Swann, G. M. P. (2009). Chapter 5. Product innovation - in Swann, G. M. P. (2009). The economics of innovation: an introduction. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Historical-economic proposals on innovation:
Mokyr, J. (2010). The contribution of economic history to the study of innovation and technical change: 1750–1914. In Hall, B.H., Rosenberg, N (eds) Handbook of the Economics of Innovation (Vol. 1, pp. 11-50). North-Holland
Networks and Standards:
Swann, G. M. P. (2009). Chapter 7. Network effect and standards - in Swann, G. M. P. (2009). The economics of innovation: an introduction. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Theory of recombination:
Arthur, W.B. (2007). The structure of invention. Research Policy, 36(2), 274-287
Fleming, L. (2001). Recombinant uncertainty in technological search. Management Science, 47(1), 117-132.
Diffusion of innovation:
Rosenberg, N. (1972). Factors affecting the diffusion of technology. Explorations in Economic History 10, 3–33
Nelson, R.R. (2004). Why and how innovations get adopted: a tale of four models. Industrial and Corporate Change 13, 679–699
Open Innovation and collaborations:
Chesbrough, H. W. (2006). Chapter 1. Open Innovation: a new paradigm for understanding industrial innovation - in Chesbrough, H. W., Vanhaverbeke, W., & West, J. (Eds.). (2006). Open innovation: researching a new paradigm. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Cassiman, B., & Veugelers, R. (2006). In search of complementarity in innovation strategy: Internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition. Management Science, 52(1), 68-82.
Teece, D.J. (1986). Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy. Research Policy 15, 285–305
Economics of patents:
David, P. A. (2004). Can" open science" be protected from the evolving regime of IPR protections? Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 160(1): 9-34.
Economics of science:
Sauermann, H., and Stephan, P. (2013). Conflicting Logics? A Multidimensional View of Industrial and Academic Science. Organization Science 24, 889–909.
Entrepreneurship:
Alvarez, S.A., and Barney, J.B. (2007). Discovery and creation: alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 1, 11–26
Åstebro, T. (2012). Returns to entrepreneurship. In Handbook of entrepreneurial finance, 45, 108.
General purpose technologies:
Bresnahan, T. (2010). General purpose technologies. In Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, 2, 761-791.
Innovation and employment:
Pianta, M. (2005), ‘Innovation and employment,’ in J. Fagerberg and R. Nelson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Innovation. Oxford University Press: Oxford
Innovation policies:
Edler, J., and Fagerberg, J. (2017). Innovation policy: what, why, and how. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 33, 2–23.
Innovation and development:
Fagerberg, J., Srholec, M., & Verspagen, B. (2010). Innovation and economic development. In Hall, B.H., Rosenberg, N (eds) Handbook of the Economics of Innovation (Vol. 2, pp. 833-872). North-Holland.
Innovation and growth:
Romer, P.M. (1989). Endogenous Technological Change. Journal of Political Economy, 98(5), S71-S102.
Rodrik, D. (2016). Premature deindustrialization. Journal of Economic Growth, 21, 1-33.
Geography of innovation:
Feldman, M.P., Kogler, D.F. (2010). Stylized facts in the geography of innovation. In Hall, B.H., Rosenberg, N (eds) Handbook of the Economics of Innovation (Vol. 1, pp. 381-410). North-Holland.
Further in-depth material will be provided by the lecturer
Classroom code: 4obnd7h
