Beginning in 1922, the rate of exit of U.S. tire producers increased sharply and the industry began a severe and protracted shakeout. Just five years earlier, the tire industry experienced a surge in entry that led to a rise of over 80% in the number of producers. We propose an explanation for...

During its early and formative years, the U.S. tire industry was heavily concentrated around Akron, Ohio. We test the extent to which entrants in Ohio were attracted to the Akron area by agglomeration benefits, contributing to a self-reinforcing process envisioned in many modern theories of...

The adequate role of Darwinist concepts in evolutionary economics has long been a contentious issue. The controversy has recently been rekindled and modified by the position of Universal Darwinismʺ, most prominently favored by Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen. They argue that the...

Using a new dataset encompassing more than 2,200 inventions made by Max Planck Society researchers from 1980 to 2004, we explore how licensee and technology characteristics affect the licensing and commercialization of technologies from public research. We find no evidence that spin-offs and...

Considerable debate surrounds the concept of entrepreneurial opportunities. This paper contributes to the discussion by bringing in concepts and findings from evolutionary economics. It makes three points. First, adopting an evolutionary market process perspective sheds new light on the nature...