In this paper we report upon a first empirical exploration of the relative efficiency of innovation development by product users vs. product producers. In a study of over 50 years of product innovation in the whitewater kayaking field, we find users in aggregate were approximately 3× more...

It has been argued that users can create innovations and also diffuse them peer-to-peer independent of support or involvement by producers: that “user-only” innovation systems can exist. It is known that users can be incented to innovate via benefits from in-house use. But users’...

Statistical indicators have not kept pace with innovation research. Today, it is well understood that many industrial and consumer products are developed by users, and that many innovations developed at private cost are freely shared. New statistical indicators will empower policymakers to take...