Search
Search

Bureaucrats or Markets in Innovation Policy?

PublicationBook
Christian Sandström, Financing of Innovations, Innovation, Innovationspolitik, Karl Wennberg, Nils Karlson
Bureaucrats or Markets in Innovation
Download

Abstract

How can innovation best be promoted? Based on a major interdisciplinary research program
with a special focus on Sweden, paired with international research, this book shows that targeted
interventions and firm subsidies do not have the intended effects but instead creates policy failures,
government waste and rent-seeking.

Instead, innovation policy should focus on supplying the right competencies and on improving the
institutions of the market economy and the general
conditions for enterprise.

Markets rather than bureaucrats are decisive for
innovation, industrial development and growth.

Sandström, C., Wennberg, K. & Karlson, N. (2019). Bureaucrats or Markets in Innovation Policy? Stockholm: Ratio.

Similar content

Does local government corruption inhibit entrepreneurship?
Article (with peer review)Publication
Wittberg, E., Erlingsson, G. Ó., Wennberg, K.
Download
Publication year

2024

Published in

Small Business Economics, 62(2), 775-806

Abstract

The dominant ‘sand in the wheels’ view holds that entrepreneurship is strongly inhibited by corruption. Challenging this, the ‘grease the wheels’ view maintains that corruption might increase entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. We extend the basic predictions of these theories by examining entrepreneurs’ start-up decisions, as well as their location choices, in a seemingly low-corruption environment: Swedish municipalities. Combining a validated index of corruption perceptions in local government with population data on new entrepreneurs, nested logit models reveal that even in a low-corruption setting such as Sweden, perceptions of corruption can deter latent entrepreneurs. We also find that a minority of entrepreneurs relocate from their home municipalities to establish their start-ups elsewhere. Surprisingly and contrary to expectations, these relocating entrepreneurs often relocate from relatively low-corruption municipalities to others that are more corrupt. Implications for future research and public policy are discussed.

Reviving Classical Liberalism Against Populism
BookPublication
Karlson, N. (2024). Reviving Classical Liberalism Against Populism. Palgrave Macmillan Cham.
Publication year

2024

Published in

Palgrave Macmillan Cham.

Abstract

How can we fight back against the populist threat to liberty, free markets, and the open society?

This open access book by Nils Karlson explores the strategies used by left- and right-wing populists to make populism intelligible, recognizable, and contestable. Karlson argues that to fight back requires the revival of liberalism itself by defending and developing the liberal institutions, the liberal spirit, liberal narratives, and liberal statecraft. The book presents a synthesized explanatory model for how populists promote autocratization through the deliberate polarization of society and traces the ideational roots of the core populist ideas that form a collectivistic identity politics. Written within the tradition of political theory and institutional economics, this book uses a wide variety of sources, including results and analyses from social psychology, ethics, law, and history.

The book is open source and can be downloaded through the link below.

Learning from Overrated Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies: Seven Takeaways
Book chapterPublication
Henrekson, M., Sandström, C., & Stenkula, M.
Publication year

2024

Published in

Springer Nature.

Abstract

This chapter integrates findings from several different case studies on mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) and makes use of the existing literature to briefly describe three other missions: The War on Cancer, homeownership in the United States, and the Swedish Million Program. Together with the analyses in the other chapters of this volume, seven takeaways regarding mission-oriented innovation policies are developed and described: (1) wicked problems cannot be solved through missions, (2) politicians and government agencies are not exempt from self-interest, (3) MOIPs are subject to rent seeking and mission capture, (4) policymakers lack information to design MOIPs efficiently, (5) MOIPs distort competition, (6) government support programs distort incentives and result in moral hazard, and (7) MOIPs ignore opportunity costs. These seven takeaways are illustrated using the cases described in this chapter and elsewhere in this volume.

Show more