One of the most recently observed stylised facts in the field of economic growth is the persistent bimodal shape of the world income distribution.. Of course, some theoretical explanations for this new stylised fact already have been provided by neoclassical growth theory within a maximising...

In this paper we add new results to the emerging field of investigating productivity levels rather than productivity change, as initiated by Hall and Jones (1996, 1997). To obtain measures of relative productivity levels we depart from traditional growth accounting and calculate the Malmquist...

The economic literature started to recognize the heterogeneity characterizing the nature of different technologies, introducing the concept of General Purpose Technologies. In this paper, we offer a new view of General Purpose Technologies, building on the historical as well as on the recent...

In this paper we propose a new mental representation of how markets, technology and their interaction concur in explaining the why of a certain innovation instead of another. We empirically test this theory in the telecommunication switches industry. We consider innovation as a new alignment of...

This study focuses on a well-known but yet elusive concept: (technological) lock-in. We summarize what is known about the nature of lock-in and offer a critical view on history- dependent processes based on recent contributions to the literature. We discuss if lock-ins are really inescapable,...

The claim of a positive association between a firm’s social assets and its inno-vative capacity is a widely debated topic in the literature. Although controversial, such an argument has informed recent innovation policy across Germany, increasingly di-rected to cluster formation. In the light...

This study investigates predictors of scientists' intentions to commercialize their research through business founding. Analyzing a cross-sectional sample of 496 German scientists, we develop and test an intentions-based model of academic entrepreneurship combining personal and contextual...

The present paper examines one of the central elements of evolutionary thinking - competition formalized by the replicator dynamics mechanism. Using data on product characteristics of automobiles sold on the German domestic market over the period 2001-2006, we construct a competitiveness or...

The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has been used as a framework to explain entrepreneurial activities within regions and industrial sectors. Despite the usefulness of this approach, the concept is under-theorized, especially with regard to the evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The...

We analyze the influence of two contradicting settings on the success in the academic spin-off creation process. Scientists, who are embedded in the academic setting, have to reach out and adapt to the logics of the commercial setting to successfully found their firm. However, along this...