Economics of innovation
Research incentives, diffusion, productivity, market formation, and the economic consequences of technological change.
Research Program 01
Innovation and Economics
Innovation, markets, and sociotechnical change
Examines how institutions, infrastructures, investments, labor, knowledge, and public policy shape technological development and distribute its benefits and costs.
Innovation is an institutional and economic process.
Scientific discoveries produce economic value through financing, organizational capability, skilled labor, manufacturing, infrastructure, market formation, and public policy. The program examines how these elements interact and why innovation produces different outcomes across industries, regions, and communities.
Research considers productivity and growth alongside concentration, inequality, labor displacement, regional development, and the distribution of technological benefits.
Areas of inquiry
Research priorities
Innovation systems
Relationships among government, universities, laboratories, firms, investors, standards bodies, and users.
Competition, finance, and industrial organization
Market power, platforms, venture finance, intellectual property, interoperability, entry, consolidation, and innovation incentives.
Labor and skills
Automation, occupational change, workplace technology, training systems, bargaining power, and job quality.
Industrial and regional policy
Public investment, procurement, clusters, place-based development, infrastructure, subsidies, and strategic economic capability.
Technology diffusion and transfer
Commercialization, adoption, licensing, public research, trade, standards, and movement between civilian and military domains.
Guiding questions
- Which institutions convert scientific knowledge into broadly productive innovation?
- How do market structure and regulation influence technological direction?
- Who captures the gains and bears the costs of technological change?
- Which public investments strengthen innovation without entrenching concentrated power?