Technology and the Human Resource: An Out-of-Equilibrium Analysis

There is no doubt that innovation is nowadays the main determinant ofeconomic growth and that the human resource is as a crucial factor of the process ofinnovation.As the role played by this factor the mainstream viewpoint emphasizes labourmarket rigidities in the explanation of cross-countries differences in innovation andgrowth performances, and calls for reforms of labour market institutions to eliminatesuch rigidities (Krugman 1994, Nicoletti and Scarpetta 2003). This is part of a moregeneral policy consensus on competitive markets as the engine of innovation and onmonopolistic distortions as the main obstacle to competition....