Journal of Evolutionary Economics最新文献

The characteristics of the financial arrangements established to finance startups affect the fate of startups. Among these features, we particularly focus on the proximities and differences between venture capital (VC) investors in syndicated investments. We consider the proximities between investors in a startup and between investors and the startup. Against the background of the theoretical literature dealing with proximity relations, we distinguish five types of proximities between VC investors and between VC investors and the startups they finance: geographic, institutional, organizational, social, and cognitive. We then test six hypotheses regarding the impacts of these proximities on the likelihood of three events occurring in VC-backed startups: obtaining a later-stage round of funding, going public, and being merged or acquired. We implement these tests on a 33-year-long, 68-country sample using survival models adapted to account for tied failures and competing events. We find that the five forms of proximity relations are influential but have distinct roles. We also find that the impacts of these proximities are nonlinear in the sense that too much proximity/distance always ends up reverting the effects of proximity/distance. Finally, we observe that as the theoretical literature predicts, cognitive proximity is positively correlated with the probability of a merger and acquisition (M&A) but negatively correlated with the likelihood of an initial public offering (IPO).

We develop a representation of creative evolution in economics based on the theory of the adjacent possible. We start by introducing an epistemological framework for economic theorizing that copes with unknowability and the unlistability of possibility spaces. From this framework, we discuss the use of knowledge in creatively evolving systems and derive four main results: that local knowledge is itself a mechanism of movement through the adjacent possible; that all action is entrepreneurial action; that causality is ambiguous; and that individuals can agree to disagree. We then apply these results to decision-making, innovation, and the emergence of institutions and commons in creatively evolving systems.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have significantly attracted the attention of institutional investors over the last decade. However, previous literature has not deeply explored the characteristics of venture capital (VC) investments in AI ventures. In this study, we explore whether and to what extent investments in AI ventures differ from those in similar non-AI ventures, and whether they are moderated by venture-level, country-level, and investor-level factors. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 5235 investments in 2689 AI ventures and 9215 investments in 4373 non-AI ventures belonging to the Industry 4.0 domain, observed from 2000 to 2019. We find that the amount invested in AI ventures is significantly lower than non-AI ones: this negative relationship is, however, moderated by a venture’s development stage, VC investor’s experience and the AI development level of the country in which the invested venture operates.

Economic development requires endogenous novelties, according to evolutionary economics. To find the endogenous source of novelties, we focus on the creativity of ordinary people when they forge their life path. We argue that such ‘life creativity’ is endogenous to the economic system because it is a typical capability of human beings, because it is intrinsically motivated, thus directly yielding well-being, and because it can be developed with better economic conditions. The paper first introduces the insights of three pioneers of evolutionary economics; it proceeds by showing the key role of creativity in human evolution; then it proposes ‘creative activity’ as an input-output technology that is both useful for and conditioned by economic development. It concludes by contrasting the Industrial Revolution in Britain with the ICT revolution in the US for their different effects of successful innovations on life creativity and well-being.

We develop a model of endogenous growth with automation to study the impact of industrial robots on growth and labour income. We incorporate human capital accumulation into that framework to examine the role of human capital in sustaining growth without displacing low-skilled labour. While automation replaces low-skilled labour with industrial robots in conducting routine tasks, horizontal innovation creates new varieties in which low-skilled labour has an employment advantage. Labour-augmenting technology takes place to improve productivity of low-skilled labour. As such, those latter types of innovation help counterbalance the adverse effect of automation on low-skilled labour. Human capital, the essential production factor that takes part in every economic activity, including conducting non-routine tasks, accumulates over time through education and training. We show that there exists a long-run equilibrium at which either robots or low-skilled workers are employed, together with human capital, to produce varieties. In the fully endogenous model, final output grows at the rate of human capital accumulation. An improvement in the quality of education and training leads to an acceleration of both automation and variety expansion, but not human capital growth. Our numerical exercise indicates that a permanent increase in automation entails a permanent impact on the range of automated varieties, long-run output level and human capital wage. The shock lowers long-run growth and low-skilled workers’ wage and their effective income share. However, it has no effect on the effective income share of human capital.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of environmental regulation on innovation and international competitiveness. We test the weak, narrow, and strong versions of Porter's hypotheses by looking at the impact of environmental regulation on exports both directly and indirectly through innovation and by introducing the role of pollution intensity in moderating the impact of stringent regulation on innovation and international competitiveness. Green policies are measured with the OECD Environmental Stringency Policy Index, distinguishing between market, non-market instruments, and technology support policies. Differently from previous papers, we adopt the technology gap approach to trade, which is suitable for relating environmental regulation to trade competitiveness and we apply the simultaneous-equation system econometric model with a moderating factor represented by pollution intensity. The results support the weak and strong versions of Porter’s hypotheses and find that the positive impact of regulation on innovation and exports increases with a country’s pollution intensity, suggesting that green policies, if properly coordinated, can represent a win–win strategy, fostering, at the same time, sustainability and international competitiveness.

We analyze, using the micro data of the Household Financial Survey (HFS) of the Bank of Spain, the consumption consequences of the household balance sheets and debt accumulation during the real estate bubble of 2002–2005, the Great Recession (2008–2011) and the subsequent economic recovery phase (2014–2017). Using quantile regression models, we find heterogeneity in household consumption behavior with respect to income and net worth levels, and in response to changes in household net worth in the last two periods. During the considered real estate bubble period, this heterogeneity in behavior is diminished, and only occurs in relation to the level of net wealth, in line with Hyman Minsky’s Paradox of Tranquility. These findings favor the post-Keynesian theory on consumption. The greater inequality leads to a higher propensity of certain households to consume in response to changes in housing and financial net worth. This is compatible with the relative income hypothesis extended in expenditure cascades models. Otherwise, households will be willing to take on more risk during economic boom periods associated with a real estate bubble, which translates into debt-financed consumption that virtually makes such heterogeneity practically disappear.

The Hydrogen Illusion (2022) is a self-published book by Samuel Furfari, a retired chemical engineer who worked for 36 years in energy policy at the European Commission. Hydrogen has been brought to the forefront of environmental policy in recent years as the EU and other Western economies are allocating billions of euros and dollars towards hydrogen production. Furfari argues that this is a mistake, and that hydrogen has little potential as an energy form, primarily as it requires so much energy in order to be produced. While at times technical and difficult to follow, The Hydrogen Illusion is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about how Western economies can combine economic and environmental development.