Evolution of consumers' preferences has been recognized by many scholars as being key to understanding technological change. However, mainstream economics cannot account for the seemingly irrational behavior of consumers based on changes in taste – consumer theory lacks exibility and accuracy...

This paper is concerned with clustering in demand. We present a discrete choice model of consumption that incorporates habit formation and information exchange among consumers in fixed social networks. We provide an analytical solution to a special case of the model by using technical tools from...

This paper presents the computational model of consumer behaviour. We consider two sources of product specic consumer skill acquisition, termed here as learning how to consume: learning by consuming and consumer socialization. Consumers utilize these two sources in order to derive higher...

We present a discrete choice model of consumption that incorporates two empirically validated aspects of consumer behaviour: inertia in consumption and interaction among consumers. We specify the interaction structure as a regular lattice with consumers interacting only with immediate...

Growth theory has mainly focused on process innovation, either through an increase in quality of the product or a reduction on the cost. The main contributions in growth theory that includes product innovation has been done in the Dixit and Stiglitz framework. This framework works with...

There has been a recent surge of interest in social economics and social capital. Articles on social capital that are published in the last five years constitute more than 60 percent of all articles on social capital. Research on social capital is now massive and spans sociology, economics,...

Using a large and novel data source, we study the structure of R&D collaboration net-works in the first five EU Framework Programmes (FPs). The networks display proper-ties typical for complex networks, including scale-free degree distributions and the small-world property. Structural features...

This paper aims to understand the links between migration and poverty at the community level. Most of the research to date on the links between migration and poverty has been conducted at the micro level, while research related to migration and development more broadly usually focuses on the...

This paper investigates the interplay between social capital, innovation and economic growth in the European Union. We identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into economic growth. In an empirical investigation of 102 European regions in the period 1990-2002,...

This chapter attempts a step forward in seeking a richer understanding of the dynamics of strategic alliances, specifically when viewed from a cross-cultural perspective. We report selected materials from a study designed to build a theory of culture and learning in organizations based on...