The modern manufacturing firm competes with product quality improvements rather than cost efficient production of simpler products. R&D spending, marketing, availability of spare parts and service facilities, customs designs, etc. embody the product quality enhancing process, requiring...

This paper presents statistical evidence on (1) the importance of 'soft' capital spending items like marketing and R&D investments, and (2) the dominant service content of production in the modern manufacturing firm. It pictures the firm as a dominantly information processing entity that has...

This paper discusses the nature of macro productivity change from the perspective of a Schumpeterian micro-to-macro (M-M) model. It emphasizes the dynamics of resource allocation through markets (firms) where agents are both price and quantity setters. We find that the organization of market...