Evolutionary Economics : Applications of Schumpeter's Ideas

This volume contains eleven papers – some theoretical, others empirical – given at the 1986 founding meeting of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society in Augsburg. By raising questions and offering additional statistical evidence, they further stimulate interest and discussion about the kinds of intuitive ideas that Schumpeter introduced in his seminal period before World War I. Whatever may be the academic mainline trend in economics, two policy-oriented 'disequilibrium' schools have flourished and still thrive: one stresses the need for social redistribution as a counterweight to a negative propensity to unemployment; the other emphasizes the explicit roles of the dynamic entrepreneur, innovation and stressful competition in stimulating economic growth. And while it is possible that the heyday of the demand-side 'age of Keynes' is passing, it also may be true that the time of the supply-side 'age of Schumpeter' is now emerging.