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The Republican Spirit of Innovism and Long-Run Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Danyang Xie

    (Society Hub, HKUST (Guangzhou))

  • Heng-Fu Zou

    (The World Bank, Washington, D. C. 20433, USA
    Institute for Advanced Study, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China
    China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, 100081, China)

Abstract

This paper embeds the republican spirit of innovism-dignity for ordinary people, liberty of entry and speech, and fair reward-into a modern ideas-based growth model to explain the Great Enrichment. Innovism is treated as a produced, nonrival social technology that multiplies production and raises the effectiveness of research, reconciling economic history with a semi-endogenous Jones framework. Small, persistent gains in civic permission and legal predictability sustain the frontier’s one-to-two percent per-capita growth as demographics slow, while backsliding lowers the slope. The model yields transparent balanced-growth conditions, ties adjudication and entry reforms to capital deepening, and shows how open science enhances research productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Danyang Xie & Heng-Fu Zou, 2025. "The Republican Spirit of Innovism and Long-Run Growth," CEMA Working Papers 803, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cuf:wpaper:803
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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