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Persistence of Firm Innovative Behavior: Towards an Evolutionary Theory

Author

Listed:
  • William R. Latham

    (Department of Economics,University of Delaware)

  • Christian Le Bas

Abstract

A growing body empirical literature deals with persistence in innovation. However, there is neither a survey of the development and status of the field nor a clear statement of a theory of persistence which includes a formal model of the dynamics of firm persistence. This paper fills these gaps by first providing a survey of previous studies of persistence, then presenting a theory, based on the evolutionary approach, to explain the choice of firms to innovate persistently, sporadically or not at all, and finally describing a formal model which shows some striking results corroborated by recent empirical evidence.

Suggested Citation

  • William R. Latham & Christian Le Bas, 2005. " Persistence of Firm Innovative Behavior: Towards an Evolutionary Theory," Working Papers 05-14, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:dlw:wpaper:05-14
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    File URL: http://graduate.lerner.udel.edu/sites/default/files/ECON/PDFs/RePEc/dlw/WorkingPapers/2005/UDWP2005-14.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Persistence; Innovation; Evolutionary;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;

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