Séminaire COURNOT – Arthur Silve (Université Laval, Québec)

Détails de l'événement :

“The political reception of innovations”

Résumé : Why do some societies embrace innovation, while others resist it? New ideas, policies, and technologies often challenge existing patterns of social and economic activity. We present a model of the reception of innovation by incumbent economic interests. The analysis reveals the features of an innovation that determine whether the incumbent elite will appropriate the innovation; block, encourage, or tax it; and how it will regulate entry. These six features are: i) whether it is easy to replicate; ii) whether it complements or competes with the elite’s sources of income; iii) whether its impact is broad or narrow; iv) whether it is location-dependent, and v) concealable; vi) whether it implies large fixed costs. While several of these factors have been considered on their own in other work, we assess them together. We provide illustrative evidence of the relevance and generality of the model to understand the fate of a variety of innovations.