There is an ambiguity in Amartya Sen's capability approach as to what constitutes an in-dividual's resources, conversion factors and valuable functionings. What we here call the\circularity problem" points to the fact that all three concepts seem to be mutually en-dogenous and interrelated. All...

Recent research has led to the empirical regularity that rm growth rate distributionsare heavy tailed. This nding implies that a few rms experience spectaculargrowth rates and decline, but that most rms have marginal growth rates. The literatureon high growth rms shows that high growth rms are...

There has been a remarkable growth in evolutionary economics since the 1980s. But despitethis outward success there has been inner disagreement on fundamental issues including thebuilding blocks of evolutionary theory and the very meaning of ‘evolution’ itself. This essayprovides a...

This paper shows how cognitive human dispositions that take effect at the level of an individualfirm’s corporate culture have repercussions on an industry’s evolution. In our theory, the latter isattributable to evolving corporate cultures coupled with changes in a firm’s...

Using a new dataset encompassing more than 2,200 inventions made by Max Planck Societyresearchers from 1980 to 2004, we explore how licensee and technology characteristics affectthe licensing and commercialization of technologies from public research. We find noevidence that spin-offs and...

Beyond its explanatory ambitions as positive science, economics has always had its normativeor applied branch that aims at providing advice about how man’s socio-economic conditionmight be improved. Under the name welfare economics the discipline’s normative branch hasbeen formalized, in the...