We provide a general theoretical characterization of how technology choice affects the long-run elasticity of substitution between capital and labour. While the shape of the technology frontier determines the long-run growth path and the long-run elasticity, adjustment costs in technology choice...

Microfinance, the provision of financial services to poor people, suffers from high interest rates owing to high transaction costs. Within these transaction costs, technologies such as MIS may be a solution to lower operating costs. However, the small size of most MFIs makes software seem...

There is no lack of prefixes for a term innovation in innovation discourse. Concepts of frugal innovation and reverse innovation have emerged recently and there are already several hallmark examples of them. However, extant academic literature on these concepts is still quite limited. The...

Frugal innovation and reverse innovation have very recently emerged as interesting concepts. Frugal innovation is based on cost constraints to serve low-income customers in developing countries. When frugal innovation comes to developed countries and becomes commercially successful it is...

This paper provides field experiment–based evidence on the potential additional forest carbon sequestration that cleaner and more fuel-efficient cookstoves might generate. The paper focuses on the Mirt (meaning “best”) cookstove, which is used to bake injera, the staple food in Ethiopia....

The concepts of frugal and reverse innovation are recent entrants to the innovation literature. Frugal innovation conveys the important idea of innovating under circumstances of resource scarcity. Reverse innovation refers to another significant turn in thinking and practice – innovations from...

The impact of strategies used to appropriate innovation rents on firm performance is analyzed using a sample of U.S. public manufacturing firms. Stronger appropriability at the firm level, achieved through patent protection or the ownership of specialized complementary assets, leads to superior...