A really good research agenda needs to have two features: it should be an important problem, and you need an angle of attack on it. In the case of the economics of innovation, I think that biases the field towards studying sectors where there is readily available data, whether those are patents, granular data on productivity, approved drugs, or whatever. A lot of low-growth sectors—education, construction, government—are maybe areas where high quality data isn’t as readily available. Or in some cases, innovation-relevant data might actually exist, but a critical mass of scholars don’t understand it, which makes it hard to study and get good feedback on your work.
That said, there is some work on this. Personally, I’m excited to look into this handbook that examines the pace of entrepreneurship and innovation across a bunch of different sectors. Also check out Brian Potter on the construction industry specifically!
A really good research agenda needs to have two features: it should be an important problem, and you need an angle of attack on it. In the case of the economics of innovation, I think that biases the field towards studying sectors where there is readily available data, whether those are patents, granular data on productivity, approved drugs, or whatever. A lot of low-growth sectors—education, construction, government—are maybe areas where high quality data isn’t as readily available. Or in some cases, innovation-relevant data might actually exist, but a critical mass of scholars don’t understand it, which makes it hard to study and get good feedback on your work.
That said, there is some work on this. Personally, I’m excited to look into this handbook that examines the pace of entrepreneurship and innovation across a bunch of different sectors. Also check out Brian Potter on the construction industry specifically!
thx—I’m aware of Brian’s work, will check out the handbook.