The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)

While the importance of innovation to economic development is widely understood, the conditions conducive to it remain the focus of much attention. This volume offers new contributions to fundamental questions relating to the economics of innovation and technological change. Central to the development of new technologies are institutional environments, and among the topics discussed are the roles played by universities and other nonprofit research institutions and the ways in which the allocation of funds between the public and private sectors affects innovation. Other essays examine the practice of open research and how the diffusion of information technology influences knowledge accumulation.