In his book "Jurassic Park" (and in the movie based on the book), Michael Crichton describes a crazed professor who through techniques of genetic engineering manages to recreate the dinosaurs and giant ferns of 65 million years past. Once the giant Tyrannosaurus Rex is brought to life. a powerful dynamics sets in: evolution. The prehistoric world embarks on a collision course with man. Researching his book, Crichton had been reading up on paleontology and on the mathematical theory of evolution, catastrophes, and chaos. Crichton explains some of the twists of nonlinear mathematics that are rewriting not only thermodynamics, physics, and chemistry (that all grapple with evolving and turbulent processes) but also paleontology, genetics, medicine and even anthropology. Collapse and chaos is not limited to prehistoric animal kingdoms and ancient civilizations. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the political and economic chaos in its aftermath demonstrate that modern civilizations are just as vulnerable. This book aims at reexamining some main portions of the discipline of economics from the point of view of economic change and creativity. There are two aspects to this perspective. First, diversity and complexity. The range of different kinds of high technology products available to consumers and producers increases rapidly. Each product is the result of a long and complex production hierarchy. As these hierarchies grow, they deliver ever more diversified and complex high tech goods. Other hierarchies fall by the wayside.

Silicon Valley is the most salient example of high-tech industrial clusters. Public policymakersthroughouttheworldwouldliketolearnthesecretsofSiliconValley in order to build their own high-tech economies. The existing literature on ind- trial clusters, which traces back to Marshall (1920), focuses on the way in which ?rms bene?t from locating in a cluster; it suggests that once a cluster comes into existence, it tends to reinforce itself by attracting more ?rms. However, a more important question is how to reach this critical mass in the ?rst place. In contrast to the literature, evidence suggests that entrepreneurs rarely move when they est- lish high-tech start-ups (Cooper and Folta, 2000). This contradicts the notion that location choice analyses lead entrepreneurs to a high-tech cluster. A high-tech industrial cluster such as Silicon Valley is characterized by c- centratedentrepreneurship. FollowingSchumpeter,weemphasizethefactthat“the appearance of one or a few entrepreneurs facilitates the appearance of others” (Schumpeter,1934). Weproposeanagent-basedcomputationalmodeltoshowhow high-tech industrial clusters could emerge in a landscape in which no ?rms existed originally. The model is essentially a spatial version of the Nelson-Winter model: Boundedly rational agents are scattered over an explicitly de?ned landscape. Each agent is endowed with some technology, which determines his ?rm’s productivity (if he has one). During each period of time, an agent with no ?rm would make a decision as to whether he wants to start one. This decision is mostly affected by the behavior of his social contacts, who are all his neighbors.

This title was first published in 2003. Bringing together contemporary innovation pattern theories inspired by the two original patterns developed by Joseph A. Schumpeter, this book develops an innovative new model of long wave aggregate level economic activity. This model is rigorously tested with post-war US manufacturing data, revealing an intriguing correlation between the data and the model. The book examines different theories of technological change, and provides a detailed account of the long wave which makes use of the relevant aspects of these theories, without betraying their main features and messages. These theories are synthesized and shown to be consistent with the development of post-war US manufacturing. Shedding light on the dynamics of the technological advances that have taken place in the last 20 years, economists and students alike will find this volume an invaluable read.

Technology Commercialization: DEA and Related Analytical Methods for Evaluating The Use and Implementation of Technical Innovation examines both general Research & Development commercialization and targeted new product innovation. New product development is a major occupation of the technical sector of the global economy and is viewed in many ways as a means of economic stability for a business, an industry, and a country. The heart of the book is a detailing of the analytical methods-with special, but not exclusive emphasis on DEA methods-for evaluating and ranking the most promising R & D and technical innovation being developed. The sponsors of the research and development may involve universities, countries, industries, and corporations-all of these sources are covered in the book. In addition, the trade-off of environmental problems vis-à-vis new product development is discussed in a section of the book. Sten Thore (editor and author) has woven together the chapter contributions by a strong group of international researchers into a book that has characteristics of both a monograph and a unified edited volume of well-written papers in DEA, technology evaluation, R&D, and environmental economics. Finally, the use of DEA as an evaluation method for product innovation is an important new development in the field of R&D commercialization.

The essays in this book examine the role of education and the university in economic development. It is the contention of the contributors that knowledge—ideas and skilled and educated people—are increasingly important for economic development. How to promote inclusive development—the process of development that includes every citizen in any country—has become a wide-ranging puzzle. After framing the problems associated with globally integrated learning processes from the perspective of science and technology policies, the essayists look at the role of the university in the knowledge economy drawing examples from the United States, Japan, and Portugal. They then review the role of innovation in the industrial policies of a variety of countries, look at systems of knowledge creation and diffusion, and conclude with commentary on the roles of public planning and policy in the achievement of sustainable development. This wide-ranging examination of knowledge and development issues will be of value to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with economic growth and development.

Creativity is being recognized as an important source of competitive advantage because a single creative idea that is both novel and useful may take an organization in a profitable new direction. This work aims to promote the burgeoning interest in group creativity by identifying new questions that will drive future research in this area.

Measuring Sustainable Development Goals Performance provides a quantitative and analytical framework for evaluating social, economic, and environmental policies aiming at the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). Continuing their earlier work on multidimensional analysis, the authors demonstrate how nations can be ranked in terms of their performance in meeting a given set of SDGs, providing numerical calculation of SDGs deficit. Their calculations show that even before the arrival of the COVID-19 virus, there existed in several large Western nations undetected pockets of SDG deficits, such as in the care for the elderly, personal safety, and hygiene. Extending the calculations to cover COVID-19 data for 2020, it turns out that the same deficit nations also suffered excess death rates caused by the virus.This book offers a balanced and holistic paradigm for evaluating progress of the SDGs, assisting the convergence of national and international efforts toward economic development, social progress, and environmental protection. - 2023 PROSE Awards - Winner: Category: Single and Multivolume Reference and Textbooks in Social Sciences: Association of American Publishers - Includes novel tools, procedures, diagnostics, and metrics for evaluating the entire spectrum of SDGs in a wide variety of settings - Ranks nations according to their social and economic performance, based on each nation's unique resource and output indicators - Examines international efforts toward shaping a new Social Contract between global partners - Delivers a new Calculus of Consent: Logical foundation for forging Geneva Consensus for Sustainable Development