The most influential religions in the public arena of the modern age have been secular religions such as Marxism, the American progressive “gospel of efficiency,” and more recently environmentalism. Environmentalism is a revealing exception but modern secular religions have typically been...

The aim of this paper is to explain the complex development of the food sector in Southern Sweden in the past decades, focusing on the relation between institutions and innovation practices and taking into account the diversity of actors composing the sector. The paper develops a theoretical...

Entrepreneurship is largely ignored or treated in a highly simplified way in endogenous growth theory. Still, it is now widely recognized that the supply of entrepreneurial talent is likely to be important for economic growth, innovation and job creation. This study consists of an in-depth...

High-growth firms (HGFs) are critical for net job creation and economic growth. We analyze HGFs using the theory of competence blocs, linking firm growth to property rights and the interaction of complementary expertise. Specifically, we discuss how the institutional framework affects the...

Using a unique database on individual Swedish patents, a survival model estimates how different factors influence the time it takes until commercialization starts. To the best of my knowledge, such an analysis has not been undertaken before. For external financing of patent projects and small...

An empirical method to identify the existence of a spatial cluster is proposed. The method, based upon regression analysis, offers researchers to categorise regions, municipalities, or cities with respect to their over- or under-representation in number of establishments and employment for any...

70 percent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa does not use adequate sanitation facilities. In rural Benin, as much as 95 percent of the population has no access to improved sanitation. This paper explores why households remain without latrines analyzing a representative sample of 2000...

The paper focuses on energy transitions in Europe over the last four centuries. Special attention is given to the models of theoretical explanations for the historical energy transitions and how these may be empirically assessed. The twin model of serial substitutions (supply side) and energy...

This study investigates the determinants of R&D expenditures in the Swedish pharmaceutical industry from the 1960s to the mid 1990s. Various proxies for the rate of return of R&D (e.g. expected profit, sales and R&D productivity) as well as the availability of internal funding (proxied by past...