Why Schumpeter was right: Innovation, market power, and creative destruction in 1920s America

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nicholas, T
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050703002523
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 1023-1058
• 关键词: great merger wave; industrial-research; firm size; tobin-q; GROWTH; persistence; monopoly; patents; SCOPE

摘要

Are firms with strong market positions powerful engines of technological progress? Joseph Schumpeter thought so, but his hypothesis has proved difficult to verify empirically. This article highlights Schumpeterian market-power and creative-destruction effects in a sample of early-twentieth-century U.S. industrial firms; his contention that an efficiently functioning capital market has a positive effect on the rate of innovation is also confirmed. Despite market power abuses by incumbents, the extent of innovation stands out: 21 percent of patents assigned to the firms sampled between 1920 and 1928 are cited in patents granted between 1976 and 2002.