Bureaucrats or Markets in Innovation Policy? – a critique of the entrepreneurial state

PublikationArtikel (med peer review)
Christian Sandström, Financing of Innovations, Innovation, Innovationspolitik, Karl Wennberg, Nils Karlson

Sammanfattning

This paper takes stock of recent suggestions that the state apparatus is a central and underappreciated actor in the generation, diffusion and exploitation of innovations enhancing growth and social welfare. We contrast such a view of “the entrepreneurial state” with theories and empirical evidence of the microeconomic processes of innovation in the modern economy which focus on well-functioning markets, free entry and competition among firms, and independent entrepreneurship as central mechanisms in the creation and dissemination of innovations. In doing so, we identify several deficiencies in the notion of an entrepreneurial state by showing that (i) there is weak empirical support in the many hundreds empirical studies and related meta analyses evaluating the effectiveness of active industrial and innovative policies, that (ii) these policies do not take account of the presence of information and incentive problems which together explain why attempts to address purported market failures often result in policy failures, and that (iii) the exclusive focus on knowledge creation through R&D and different forms of firm subsidies ignores the equally important mechanisms of knowledge dissemination and creation through commercial exploitation in markets. We discuss how a more theoretically well-founded focus on the state as investing in knowledge generation and securing the conditions of free and competitive markets will lead to a more innovative economy.

Karlson, N., Sandström, C., & Wennberg, K. (2020). Bureaucrats or Markets in Innovation Policy? – A critique of the entrepreneurial state. Review of Austrian Economics, 34, 91-95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-020-00508-7


Liknande innehåll

Dynamics of founding team diversity and venture outcomes: A simulation approach
Artikel (med peer review)Publikation
Sundriyal, V. K., Lévesque, M., Wennberg, K., & Norgren, A.
Publiceringsår

2024

Publicerat i

Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

Sammanfattning

Research summary

Entrepreneurship research overlooks the dynamics of changing diversity in founding teams. Our simulations calibrated from existing studies suggest that founding teams that change diversity exhibit greater discounted performance for their ventures due to being less diverse and thus their ventures surviving longer, compared to teams that maintain their diversity. Moreover, discounted performance is higher for teams changing diversity due to other teams’ performance than due to their own poor performance. Simulating without membership changes the interdependence between team diversity, venture performance, and team disruption, we find that while team diversity is overall performance-enhancing, this association differs across contexts and its impact varies as ventures mature. Founding team diversity should thus be seen as a continuum where moderate diversity can best serve teams in turbulent environments.

Managerial summary

We simulated the behavior of founding teams over time to show that compared to teams that do not change their diversity, those who do experience greater discounted performance for their business ventures. This improvement stems from the increased longevity, and thus greater accumulated performance, for teams that switch since they are more rather than less homogeneous. Our investigation also indicates that ventures led by teams that change diversity because they aspire to outperform other teams, tend to exhibit greater discounted performance than those that change diversity to outperform themselves. When we investigate the interconnectedness of teams’ diversity, ventures’ performance, and disruption, albeit without allowing for any changes in team diversity, we find that while diversity usually helps, teams moderately diversified tend to perform best in turbulent times.

Is Hydrogen a green bubble? A review of Samuel Furfari’s book The Hydrogen Illusion
Artikel (utan peer review)Publikation
Sandström, C., & Eskilson, E.
Publiceringsår

2024

Publicerat i

Journal of Evolutionary Economics

Sammanfattning

The Hydrogen Illusion (2022) is a self-published book by Samuel Furfari, a retired chemical engineer who worked for 36 years in energy policy at the European Commission. Hydrogen has been brought to the forefront of environmental policy in recent years as the EU and other Western economies are allocating billions of euros and dollars towards hydrogen production. Furfari argues that this is a mistake, and that hydrogen has little potential as an energy form, primarily as it requires so much energy in order to be produced. While at times technical and difficult to follow, The Hydrogen Illusion is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about how Western economies can combine economic and environmental development.

Seven reasons why mission-oriented innovation policies seldom work in practice
Artikel (med peer review)Publikation
Henrekson, M., Sandström, C., & Stenkula, M.
Publiceringsår

2024

Publicerat i

Economic Affairs

Sammanfattning

Large-scale government programmes and centrally directed industrial policies to address well-defined societal goals – mission-oriented innovation policies (hereafter referred to as ‘missions’) – are now prominent on many governments’ agendas. This new-found enthusiasm that a ‘visible hand’ should – or perhaps even must – drive the economy forward has, until recently, escaped significant critical scrutiny. There is a dearth of academic studies examining how, when and why such missions often risk failure.

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