"Innovation and entrepreneurship are ubiquitous today, both as fields of study and as starting points for conversations among experts in government and economic development. But while these areas on continue to attract public and private investments, many measurements of their resulting economic growth-including productivity growth and business dynamism-have remained modest. Why this difference? Because not all business sectors are the same, and the transformative gains of some industries have been offset by stagnation or contraction in others. Accordingly, a nuanced understanding of the economy requires a nuanced understanding of where innovation and entrepreneurship occur and where they matter. Answering these questions allows for strategic public investment and the infrastructure for economic growth.The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, the latest entry in the NBER conference series, seeks to codify these answers. The editors leverage industry studies to identify specific examples of productivity improvements enabled by innovation and entrepreneurship, including those from new production technologies, increased competition, new organizational forms, and other means. Taken together, the volume illuminates whether the contribution of innovation and entrepreneurship to economic growth is likely to be concentrated, be it selected sectors or more broadly"--

Businesses, consumers, industry groups, and governments understand the importance of innovation for continued economic success and improvements in quality of life. However, innovation in the housing and residential construction industry remains a topic about which little is known while a small but growing literature is making positive progress. Building on the first book in the Housing Innovation collection, the purpose of this book is to share new research paradigms that focus on innovation and are, in and of themselves, innovative. The first chapters focus on a newly created diffusion of innovation model and its application to the industry while later chapters showcase several innovative techniques that shed new light on housing, residential construction, and policy-making. As the second book in the Housing Innovation collection, this book is designed to assist readers as they continue to peel back the complex layers of innovation in housing and residential construction.

In this chapter, I discuss innovation and entrepreneurship in residential real estate and construction (housing). Based on R&D spending and patent statistics, housing does not appear to be a very innovative sector. But in the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in the amount of investment going to real estate technology companies. I discuss the companies and technologies which have drawn the most attention from investors. I then review the literature on two major innovation trends in housing: the growth of the internet as a tool for housing search, and the development of home-sharing platforms which allow homeowners to use their homes as short-term rentals. These innovations have likely increased the efficiency of housing markets, leading to higher quality matches between buyers and sellers, and more efficient utilization of space. However, the effects are hard to measure due to the difficulty of separating quality changes from price changes. In comparison to residential real estate, there appears to have been less recent innovation in residential construction. In many areas, residential construction is artificially constrained by local land use policies, and estimates from the literature suggest that relaxing these constraints could increase economic growth significantly. Finally, I discuss anti-competitive practices in real estate which may hinder entrepreneurship and the adoption of new innovations, and I discuss how innovation and entrepreneurship in other sectors may affect the housing market.

Based on the work of Karl "Chip" Case, who is renowned for his scientific contributions to the economics of housing and public policy, this is a must read during a time of restructuring our nation's system of housing finance.

There is a small and growing literature that explores the impact of digitization in a variety of contexts, but its economic consequences, surprisingly, remain poorly understood. This volume aims to set the agenda for research in the economics of digitization, with each chapter identifying a promising area of research. "Economics of Digitization "identifies urgent topics with research already underway that warrant further exploration from economists. In addition to the growing importance of digitization itself, digital technologies have some features that suggest that many well-studied economic models may not apply and, indeed, so many aspects of the digital economy throw normal economics in a loop. "Economics of Digitization" will be one of the first to focus on the economic implications of digitization and to bring together leading scholars in the economics of digitization to explore emerging research.

Product architectures are becoming increasingly modular, along with the industries that produce them. Instead of a single integrated firm designing and producing an entire product, clusters of firms design and produce individual components that are later integrated. While modularity has often been hailed as a catalyst for innovation, I show that modularity can hinder some kinds of innovation. Within a modular system, innovations that are limited to individual modules without altering interfaces and processes (modular innovations) thrive, while innovations that cross module boundaries and alter interfaces and processes (integral innovations) are stifled. In a study of implementations of twenty three different technologies in one hundred and twelve US buildings, I demonstrate that the odds for integral innovations to be implemented are 84% lower than for modular innovations, even after accounting for technology costs and other factors. The primary underlying mechanism is that integral innovations involve a loss of the embedded coordination that standardization provides. Thus, I investigate supply chain integration as a moderator and a substitute for the lost coordination. I compare high integration (both vertical and horizontal), medium integration (either vertical or horizontal), and low integration (neither vertical nor horizontal). I demonstrate that as integration increases, so does the likelihood of implementing integral innovations. In fact, the odds of implementation of integral innovations increase by 542% in supply chains characterized by high levels of integration. Thus, I shed light on the relationship between an innovation's alignment with existing industry structure and standards and the complex moderating effect of supply chain integration in modular industries. In addition, I develop a comprehensive analytical framework to explain innovation diffusion in the construction industry -- integrating the supply chain learning and coordination issues discussed above with high levels of demand fluctuation, competitive bidding by trade, and broken agency.