IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8947.html

Growing by Leaps and Inches: Creative Destruction, Real Cost Reduction, and Inching Up

Author

Listed:
  • Michael R. Darby
  • Lynne G. Zucker

Abstract

Most firms achieve perfective progress, incrementally improving commodities or productivity. But technological progress is concentrated in a few firms achieving metamorphic progress: forming or transforming industries with technological breakthroughs (e.g., biotechnology, lasers, semiconductors, nanotechnology). Unless congruent with incumbents' science and technology base, metamorphic progress promotes entry. Scientific breakthroughs embodied in discovering scientists, protected by natural excludability, and transferred by learning-by-doing-with at the bench generally drive metamorphic progress. Embodied knowledge is rivalrous and leads to entry and industry dominance by star-scientist-linked firms. Incorporating this scientific-entrepreneurial process is essential to improving - if not transforming - endogenous growth models.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael R. Darby & Lynne G. Zucker, 2002. "Growing by Leaps and Inches: Creative Destruction, Real Cost Reduction, and Inching Up," NBER Working Papers 8947, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8947
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8947.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:wvu:wpaper:06-05 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Bao, Xiaolu & Johan, Sofia & Kutsuna, Kenji, 2016. "Do political connections matter in accessing capital markets? Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 24-41.
    3. Michael R. Darby & Lynne G. Zucker, 2006. "Innovation, Competition and Welfare-Enhancing Monopoly," NBER Working Papers 12094, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ouimet, Paige & Zarutskie, Rebecca, 2014. "Who works for startups? The relation between firm age, employee age, and growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(3), pages 386-407.
    5. John V. Duca & Mine K. Yücel, 2002. "An overview of science and cents: exploring the economics of biotechnology," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    6. Michael Storper & Anthony J. Venables, 2004. "Buzz: face-to-face contact and the urban economy," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 351-370, August.
    7. Lynne G. Zucker & Michael R. Darby, 2009. "Star Scientists, Innovation and Regional and National Immigration," Chapters, in: David B. Audretsch & Robert E. Litan & Robert Strom (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Openness, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Jeff S. Armstrong & Michael R. Darby & Lynne G. Zucker, 2003. "Commercializing knowledge: university science, knowledge capture and firm performance in biotechnology," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Sep, pages 149-170.
    9. Kalcheva, Ivalina & McLemore, Ping & Pant, Shagun, 2018. "Innovation: The interplay between demand-side shock and supply-side environment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 440-461.
    10. Wang, Ning & Hagedoorn, John, 2014. "The lag structure of the relationship between patenting and internal R&D revisited," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(8), pages 1275-1285.
    11. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Daniele Biancardi & Mabel Sanchez Barrioluengo & Federico Biagi, 2019. "Study on Higher Education Institutions and Local Development," JRC Research Reports JRC117272, Joint Research Centre.
    12. Michael R. Darby & Lynne G. Zucker & Andrew Wang, 2003. "Universities, Joint Ventures, and Success in the Advanced Technology Program," NBER Working Papers 9463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Srikant Devaraj & Marcus T. Wolfe & Pankaj C. Patel, 2021. "Creative destruction and regional health: evidence from the US," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 573-604, April.
    14. Pedro Aceituno-Aceituno & Joaquín Danvila-del-Valle & Abel González García & Carlos Bousoño-Calzón, 2018. "Entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and scientific mobility: The Spanish case," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, September.
    15. Chava, Sudheer & Oettl, Alexander & Subramanian, Ajay & Subramanian, Krishnamurthy V., 2013. "Banking deregulation and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 759-774.
    16. Michael R. Darby & Lynne G. Zucker & Andrew Wang, 2004. "Joint Ventures, Universities, and Success in the Advanced Technology Program," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(2), pages 145-161, April.
    17. Stefano Colombo & Luca Grilli, 2017. "Should I stay or should I go? Founder’s decision to leave an entrepreneurial venture during an industrial crisis," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 97-121, February.
    18. Russell S. Sobel & Andrea M Dean, 2008. "Has Wal‐Mart Buried Mom And Pop?: The Impact Of Wal‐Mart On Self‐Employment And Small Establishments In The United States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(4), pages 676-695, October.
    19. Amir Tabarzad & Ali Asghar Ghaemi & Shahrokh Zand-parsa, 2016. "Barley Grain Yield and Protein Content Response to Deficit Irrigation and Sowing Dates in Semi-Arid Region," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(10), pages 193-193, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8947. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.