All posts tagged: innovation

Front-loading complexity for innovation

August 18, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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articles

An interesting paper on influencing the rates of innovation – how more likely we are to come up with new or more complex products given a set of technologies, or components, that are already available to us now. (…) we measure how the number of makeable products (words, recipes, cocktails, and software products) grows as we acquire new components (letters, ingredients, beverages, and development tools). We do this for an arbitrary order of component acquisition […]

Assorted links for 08/16/2019

August 16, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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Links

1. Snow from the Far North can contain thousands of particles of microplastic (environment) 2. How a ‘NULL’ license plate landed one hacker in ticket hell (technology) 3. Surgical Robots are Surging in Popularity. So Will Their Data. (innovation) 4. One Size Doesn’t Have to Fit All (interventions) 5. This Danish Bank Is Offering ‘Negative’ Mortgage Rates—Here’s What That Means by Erik Sherman (finance)

Assorted links for 08/12/2019

August 12, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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Books / economics / Links

1. Can you step in the same river twice? Wittgenstein v Heraclitus by David Egan (philosophy) 2. Counting Calories to Stay Fit? There’s a Trillion Little Problems With That (health) 3. Great Ideas Are Growing Scarce. That’s Not So Great by Noah Smith (innovation) 4. Yes, There Is a Trade-Off Between Inflation and Unemployment by Greg Mankiw (economics) 5. The economics of bubbles by Brent Goldfarb and David A Kirsch (economics) and their new book: […]

Knowledge, innovation, economic growth

August 7, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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articles / economics / knowledge

On a macro level, knowledge creation relates to innovation and how it influences economic growth. Knowledge creation, however, originates at the micro level. Microeconomic evidence for knowledge creation and innovation at the level of individual inventors is however lacking. One interesting question is whether, and how, collaborations between individual scientists benefit knowledge creation. Such studies are important as they can inform policies. In context of innovation and economic growth, fostering collaborations and promoting collaborative spirit […]

Assorted links for 08/06/2019

August 6, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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Links

1. How Mosquitoes Changed Everything by Brooke Jarvis They slaughtered our ancestors and derailed our history. And they’re not finished with us yet. 2. The Sparta Fetish Is a Cultural Cancer by Myke Cole The myth of the mighty warrior-state has enchanted societies for thousands of years. Now it fuels a global fascist movement. (…) That the legend has little to do with the real Spartans would be an academic point, but this myth has […]

Dissecting inventor CEOs

August 4, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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articles

Interesting paper by Emdad Islam and Jason Zein [1] on whether high technology firms led by inventor CEOs with hands-on innovation experience (the Netflix’s Reed Hastings types) have higher corporate innovation output and impact compared to companies led by non-inventor CEOs. Pinpointing the corporate traits that would predict innovation is tricky. Many spurious correlations may exist and filtering predictive features is challenging. For example, Reeb and Zhao [2] note that from thirty-five previously identified determinants […]

Assorted links for 07/30/2019

July 30, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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Links

Innovation 1. The Impact of State-Level R&D Tax Credits on the Quantity and Quality of Entrepreneurship Catherine Fazio, Jorge Guzman, Scott Stern, NBER Working Paper No. 26099, July 2019 Abstract “The acceleration of start-up activity is often cited as a rationale for the R&D tax credit, a key innovation policy instrument adopted increasingly by US states over the past quarter century. While there is a strong empirical base linking the R&D tax credit to increased R&D expenditures […]