This book provides a survey of the theory and of the empirical knowledge about the links between market structure and technological change.

First Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book examines the role of strategic visions of future technological development in the evolution of market structure. This perspective offers a novel way of resolving some of the puzzles that have arisen in understanding the effects of rapid technology change and market structure. Strategic visions are seen to play a central role in corporate strategy, and industrial policy. The authors develop some theoretical tools to study these questions, and present 5 case studies of high technology industries, with conclusions for policy. The book will be of interest to industrial economists concerned with the effects of rapid technological change, and to those interested in technology management. It will also be of interest to economists and others working in high technology industries, and in government.

Technical advance requires resources and is motivated by the quest for profits; therefore, the rate and direction of advance is determined by the economic system. Recognition of this fact has focused attention on the performance of the market economy in the allocation of resources to technical advance, and the consequent body of research is surveyed and synthesised in this book. The theories of market structure and innovation proposed by Schumpeter, Galbraith, Arrow, Schmookler, Scherer, Mansfield, Phillips, Barzel, Kamien and Schwartz, Loury, Nelson and Winter, Grabowski, Dasgupta and Stiglitz, and others are presented in an integrated form. These theories deal with the nature of competition, the incentives to innovate and the pace of innovative activity under different market structures, and the existence of a market structure that yields the most rapid rate of innovation. In addition, the findings of seventy empirical studies dealing with various facets of the microeconomics of technical innovation are presented. The book is designed to be accessible to economists working in a variety of situations - in universities, business and government - and who are concerned with questions of technical innovation. It is also suitable for senior-level undergraduates and first year graduate students approaching the subject in a comprehensive way for the first time.