The Economics of Industrial Innovation

Revised and updated to incorporate new research findings in the 1970s and early 1980s, this book surveys innovation in the chemical, oil, nuclear energy, synthetics, and electronics industries. It then analyzes the general implications of changes in the innovation process for innovation theory and for the theory of the firm. Freeman contends that the growth of industrial R&D has favored the large firm and has contributed to industrial concentration, and that the nature of R&D is such that technical and market uncertainties cannot be avoided. In a final section, he notes the public policy implications of this conclusion and argues for the development of an explicit national policy for science and technical innovation. In particular, he argues that the promotion of new technological systems may be an important means to restore the economic health of mature industrial economies.

Christopher Freeman is Professor and Director of the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex.