This paper exploits recent contributions to the notions of modularity and autocatalytic sets to identify the functional and structural units that define the strongest systematic and self-sustaining channels of knowledge transfer and accumulation within the network of knowledge flows between...

When a system, be it biological, organizational (and) or technological, is composed of many interacting units, its evolution is strongly affected by the degree of specialization and the mode of integration prevailing between its component parts. If the system is composed of highly specialized...

A unifying formal classification of the different types of R&D growth models is used in this paper to discuss how they face with the fact that not only R&D employment, but also the R&D employment share has risen dramatically in the advanced countries over the last fifty years. Depending on the...

From a given directed weighted network of knowledge links between technology fields, the paper develops a multisector dynamic model of incremental innovation and R&D activity in these fields. The model is focused on the equilibrium share distribution of these variables, which is proved to be...

This paper attempts at fixing some guide-posts on the relation between variety, consumption and growth, while abstracting from the well known effect that variety may exert on productivity, through specialization. A mechanism is first described, through which preference for variety expressed by...

This paper is concerned with the threads connecting Richard Goodwin's early formation as an Harvard undergraduate student in political science and philosophy, with his life-long concern with the modes in which novelty and innovation enters into social systems and modifies their working. We shall...

This paper suggests a knowledge based approach to the formation of collaboration networks in basic research. Though mainly focused on foundations, it provides the example of a set of knowledge distributions supporting effort allocations that are pairwise equilibria of the collaboration game....