Most neo-Ricardian studies on the "choice of technique" are based on a comparison of alternative technologies applicable to the same industrial branch. Some authors even recommend restrict analyses of the long-run technological changes to a single industry. In reality, innovations often require...

"The primary objective of the book "Frugal Innovation in Entrepreneurship" is to offer a thorough examination of frugal innovation ideas and their use in promoting entrepreneurial endeavors. This book attempts to explore by using a wide range of successful case studies, empirical research, a...

Frugal innovation is an approach to using fewer materials and finances to develop more affordable and simple products and services. The idea of resource-scarce, frugal innovation carries the potential of adapting to local needs and policies, in contrast with dominant global, often...

This paper examines the relationship between mobile internet, employment and structural transformation in Rwanda. Thanks to its ability to enable access to a wide range of ICT technologies, internet coverage has the potential to affect the dynamics and the composition of employment...

Developing countries rely on technology created by developed countries. This paper demonstrates that such reliance increases wage inequality but leads to greater production in developing countries. I study a Brazilian innovation program that taxed the leasing of international technology to...

In a continuous time model with stochastic demand, two firms compete in R&D, with the lead patent affecting the probability of success of a second innovation competing in the same product market; the size and direction of this effect characterize the level of appropriability. From this...

This paper examines the relationship between mobile internet, employment and structural transformation in Rwanda. Thanks to its ability to enable access to a wide range of ICT technologies, internet coverage has the potential to affect the dynamics and the composition of employment...

Developing countries rely on technology created by developed countries. This paper demonstrates that such reliance increases wage inequality but leads to greater production in developing countries. I study a Brazilian innovation program that taxed the leasing of international technology to...

The availability of inappropriate technologies in Asian countries has been a largely-ignored factor preventing the expansion of renewable energy in Asia. The promotion of certain expensive types of renewable energy with inbuilt deficiencies, which detract from their benefits, has served as a...

We present a model of growth and technology transfer based on the idea that technologies are specific to particular combinations of inputs. We argue that this model is more realistic than the usual specification, in which an improvement in any technique for producing a given good improves all...

We consider the differential incentives of the North and the South to provide patent protection to innovating firms in the North. The two regions are assumed to have a different distribution of preferences over the range of exploitable technologies. Due to the scarcity of R&D resources, the two...

This paper explores a one-agent Bayesian model of learning by doing and technological choice. To produce output, the agent can choose among various technologies. The beneficial effects of learning by doing are bounded on each technology, and so long-run growth in output can take place only if...

The microeconomic empirical literature devoted to the link between innovation and employment tends to suggest that technological change has a positive effect on jobs, at least at the level of the firm. The main purpose of this paper is to see whether this result still holds in a situation where...

Technology adoption is crucial for the development of low income countries. This paper investigates how parametric insurance can contribute to improving access to finance, and hence to technology, for smallholder farmers. In a model with moral hazard, we show that bundling parametric insurance...

Does the adoption of technological change depend on labor market institutions? The disparities in technology adoption across countries are enormous and are a major factor in explaining poverty. The returns to introducing new technology differ across countries since they depend not only on...

This chapter starts from the recognition that we need to develop better ways to capture and measure Frugal innovation (FI). Through using data from a systematic literature review, we explore how FIs contain relatively differentiated characteristics from conventional innovations. We provide an...

This chapter presents a study of frugal innovation at universities in the Western Cape, South Africa. The study provides preliminary evidence of university faculty and students as frugal innovators. From the data emerges a typology of university-driven frugal innovation. Type 1 revolves around...

This chapter sets the scene for the Handbook on Frugal Innovation. First, it describes the origins of the concept of frugal innovation and its emergence as an academic field of interest. Then, main drivers behind frugal innovation are explored. From the scholarly discussion on frugal innovation...

Purpose: Most research and development (R&D) activities in Brazil are performed by science and technology institutions (STIs). The purpose of this research was to determine whether environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) developed by these organizations were transferred to companies, either...

Based on a newly compiled set of Chinese data, this paper puts established assump-tions on the role of technological variety in perspective. It does so from two main an-gles. First, by documenting whether, in China, technological variety has played a simi-lar role for regional development as in...

"This timely Handbook provides a conceptual discussion and a wide empirical presentation of new disruptive forms of innovation producing appropriate technologies, addressing the needs of low-income populations, and providing alternative solutions for sustainable development. The Handbook of...

Except in limited academic peripheries, the concept of appropriate technology has never gained a central role in contemporary China’s policy-making process. Since the 1950s, high concentration of production sites widely employed unskilled-labor-intensive industries and relatively low-cost...

The concept of appropriate technologies, originally developed in Schumacher's book Small is Beautiful, grew out as a reaction to the energy crisis in the 1970s. Despite being originally developed for environmental and sustainability issues, it has become multifaced by the turn of the 21st...

The chapter reviews the mental models and resulting conceptual frameworks, referred to as impact pathways, that scholars and practitioners use to theorize how local innovation of appropriate technology brings about development benefits, and what those benefits are. We identify three mental...

Innovation is one of the most important drivers of economic development. Even in developing countries, households have access to a wide array of new technologies. However, factors affecting households' technology adoption decisions remain poorly understood. Using data on solar microgrid adoption...

The phenomenon of frugal innovation, as characterized by "affordable excellence", is experiencing increasing acceptance by business leaders, policy makers and scholars around the world. Frugal products, services and technologies strive to radically increase affordability while significantly...