This course will consider the determination of innovative activity and performance, and the effect of innovation on productivity, economic growth, and social welfare. We will focus particularly on the characteristics of markets and firms that influence industrial innovation. Such characteristics include, for example, market concentration, firm size, the strength of patent protection, and the vitality of the basic science and technology underlying innovation in a given industry. We will also study the economics of the adoption and diffusion of innovation. In addition to drawing on economic theory, the course will emphasize empirical studies of innovation and technological change, and will selectively exploit case study and institutional studies.
