This paper discusses how markets and society relate to each other. We present and discuss three views: markets as separate, markets as embedded, and markets as impure. One’s stance on the contribution of markets to welfare hinges on the conceptualization of market and other spheres in...

In this article, contrary to popular belief, it is argued on the basis of Transaction Cost Economics that consumers will become dependent subcontractors on electronic markets. Consumers invest time and effort building up a relation with a producer or e-tailer; an investment that is...

Services constitute a major part of the economy, and, contrary to popular believe, service firms do innovate. In this paper I take a closer look at one aspect of innovation in services: appropriability. I discuss the different elements that are possibly of importance for appropriability, and...

In contrast to findings in other countries, and surprisingly in view of the literature, high tech economic activity in the Netherlands is not spread geographically according to either relevant labour market characteristics or because of localized agglomeration effects. Instead, statistical...

This paper endeavours to contribute to the growing institutionalist literature on the conception of the institution. We draw from John Davis’ (2003) analysis of the individual in posing the questions: what differentiates institutions, and how can changing institutions be identified...

The development of economic thought is not unlike the development of technological knowledge: paradigms can be discerned over time and across the field. Indeed, in its history economics has experienced paradigm shifts. There is no reason why it will not do so again in the future. In technology,...

In their seminal paper, Acs and Audretsch (1988) analyze innovation patterns across industries and identify several determinants of innovativeness, both positive and negative. Their work is seminal if only because of the unique data they use to measure innovativeness: new-product announcements....

In the year 2000 some $142 billion in royalties were paid internationally by users of a specific piece of knowledge that were protected under Intellectual Property Right law (IPR) to those parties that owned these rights. Under current circumstances where knowledge & innovation play an...

For an economy where knowledge plays an increasingly important role in shaping its dynamics, economics needs a dynamic (Schumpeterian) welfare theory. This paper sketches the role of knowledge in an economy and argues that a static Paretian welfare economics is inadequate, or at least needs to...

Although informal networks are often emphasized as facilitating knowledge transfer, we use network data obtained from a multi-unit high-tech firm to show that the formal network also significantly contributes to inter-unit knowledge transfer. Individuals centrally placed in a network are, in...