This comprehensive and innovative Handbook applies the tools of the economics of complexity to analyse the causes and effects of technological and structural change. It grafts the intuitions of the economics of complexity into the tradition of analysis based upon the Schumpeterian and Marshallian legacies. The Handbook elaborates the notion of innovation as an emerging property of the organized complexity of an economic system, and provides the basic tools to understand the recursive dynamics between the emergence of innovation and the unfolding of organized complexity. In so doing, it highlights the role of organizational thinking in explaining the introduction of innovations and the dynamics of structural change. With a new methodological approach to the economics of technological change, this wide-ranging volume will become the standard reference for postgraduates, academics and practitioners in the fields of evolutionary economics, complexity economics and the economics of innovation.
Contents: PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. The Economic Complexity of Technological Change: Interactions, Knowledge and Path Dependence C. Antonelli PART II: THE ECONOMIC COMPLEXITY OF INNOVATION 2. Complexity and Innovation Dynamics D.A. Lane 3. Complexity in the Theory of the Developing Firm H. Bloch and S. Metcalfe 4. The Persistence of Innovation and Path Dependence A. Colombelli and N. Von Tunzelmann 5. The Symbiotic Theory of Innovation: Knowledge Creation and the Evolution of the Capitalist System M. Fransman PART III: THE ECONOMIC COMPLEXITY OF KNOWLEDGE 6. Knowledge, Complexity and Networks P.P. Saviotti 7. The Dynamics of Technological Knowledge: From Linearity to Recombination J. Kraft and F. Quatraro 8. Complexity and the Coordination of Technological Knowledge: The Case of Innovation Platforms D. Consoli and P.P. Patrucco 9. Causes, Consequences and Dynamics of 'Complex' Distributions of Technological Activities: The Case of Prolific Inventors W. Latham and C. Le Bas 10. The Biomedical Workforce in the UA: An Example of Positive Feedbacks P.E. Stephan 11. University-Industry Interactions: The Unresolved Puzzle I.M. Bodas Freitas, A. Geuna and F. Rossi 12. A Functional Theory of Technology and Technological Change A. Bonaccorsi PART IV: THE ECONOMIC COMPLEXITY OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT 13. Mesoeconomics Explanatory Core for Analysing Structure and Evolution K. Dopfer 14. Notes on a Complexity Theory of Economic Development K. Frenken and R. Boschma 15. Innovation Networks: Formation, Performance and Dynamics U. Cantner and H. Graf 16. The Complex Interaction Between Global Production Networks, Digital Information Systems and International Knowledge Transfers J. Hildrum, D. Ernst and J. Fagerberg 17. The Complex Dynamics of Economic Development V. Robert and G. Yoguel PART V: LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMIC POLICY 18. Coevolution, Emergence and Economic Development: Some Lessons from the Israeli and Mexican Experience G. Dutrenit and M. Teubal 19. Network Models of Innovation Process and Policy Implications P. Ormerod, B. Rosewell and G. Wiltshire 20. Government as Entrepreneur: Examples from US Technology Policy A.N. Link