This paper presents a fully specified model of long-run growth in which knowledge is assumed to be an input in production that has increasing marginal productivity. It is essentially a competitive equilibrium model with endogenous technological change. In contrast to models based on diminishing returns, growth rates can be increasing over time, the effects of small disturbances can be amplified by the actions of private agents, and large countries may always grow faster than small countries. Long-run evidence is offered in support of the empirical relevance of these possibilities.

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Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth

Given assumptions about the characteristics of knowledge and the knowledge requirements of production, the firm is conceptualized as an institution for integrating knowledge. The primary contribution of the paper is in exploring the coordination mechanisms through which firms integrate the specialist knowledge of their members. In contrast to earlier literature, knowledge is viewed as residing within the individual, and the primary role of the organization is knowledge application rather than knowledge creation. The resulting theory has implications for the basis of organizational capability, the principles of organization design (in particular, the analysis of hierarchy and the distribution of decision-making authority), and the determinants of the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the firm. More generally, the knowledge-based approach sheds new light upon current organizational innovations and trends and has far-reaching implications for management practice.

https://memberfiles.freewebs.com/84/90/65819084/documents/TOWARD%20A%20KNOWLEDGE-BASED%20THEORY%20OF%20THE.pdf

Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm

To date, the phenomenon of entrepreneurship has lacked a conceptual framework. In this note we draw upon previous research conducted in the different social science disciplines and applied fields of business to create a conceptual framework for the field. With this framework we explain a set of empirical phenomena and predict a set of outcomes not explained or predicted by conceptual frameworks already in existence in other fields.

The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research

This paper draws on the social and behavioral sciences in an endeavor to specify the nature and microfoundations of the capabilities necessary to sustain superior enterprise performance in an open economy with rapid innovation and globally dispersed sources of invention, innovation, and manufacturing capability. Dynamic capabilities enable business enterprises to create, deploy, and protect the intangible assets that support superior long- run business performance. The microfoundations of dynamic capabilities—the distinct skills, processes, procedures, organizational structures, decision rules, and disciplines—which undergird enterprise-level sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capacities are difficult to develop and deploy. Enterprises with strong dynamic capabilities are intensely entrepreneurial. They not only adapt to business ecosystems, but also shape them through innovation and through collaboration with other enterprises, entities, and institutions. The framework advanced can help scholars understand the foundations of long-run enterprise success while helping managers delineate relevant strategic considerations and the priorities they must adopt to enhance enterprise performance and escape the zero profit tendency associated with operating in markets open to global competition. Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance

Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization

T g --HE present paper was \"provoked\" by Professor Fisher's restatement of his interest theory,' but is not a review of his book or even properly an article on the same subject. The reader is warned at the outset that it is a \"rethreshing of the old straw\" not only of interest theory in general, but worse, of price theory in general. It might be called a \"review\" of his full title-The Theory of Interest as Determined by Impatience To Spend Income and Opportunity To Invest It-with especial reference to the two words \"determined\" and \"and.\" But the real target is the more general proposition that any price is \"determined\" by subjective \"and\" objective factors (the terms repeatedly used by Professor Fisher) or, in more common parlance, utility and cost of production. Two contentions are to be argued: first, that the prices of ordinary, typical commodities are practically \"determined\" by objective factors, cost or productive conditions, subjective (utility) factors typically exerting a large influence on supply but an insignificant one on price; and, second, that the interest rate is an extreme example of this principle, regarding which it is especially true and demonstrable that the subjective factors (\"impatience,\" \"time-preference\") are in a peculiar degree purely passive. Thus the argument is directed primarily against the generally accepted \"eclectic\" or \"equilibrium\" statement of general price theory, according to which demand and supply are \"like the two blades of a pair of scissors.\" Professor Fisher's interest theory is useful as \"a case in point\" because of the intrinsic importance of its own problem and of its treatment at the author's hands, and because of the generally inadequate treatment of this aspect of interest as a case of price determination. Professor Fisher himself does not adopt the view of interest as a price like other prices or indicate the parallelism or possible concrete

Professor Fisher's Interest Theory: A Case in Point

WRITING a review of this volume has proved to be a difficult assignment. In 750 large and well-packed pages, Professor Mises, a respected veteran of economic warfare and the author of notable works, which have long been widely read, in various divisions of the wide field of economics, now presents a treatise upon it as a whole. He discusses at length the major problems of theory, as now recognised after generations of voluminous controversy. His book itself is -highly controversial in substance, and in tone, though the argument is directed toward positions, with very little debate or Auseinandersetzung with named authors. In some relation to its controversial character, the content is largely " methodological ", in the broad sense. This is both natural and, in my opinion, proper; for the practical as well as the theoretical issues in economics come down to methodological questions having to do with assumptions, axioms, or " facts ". It is a field in which it is largely the facts, and the meaning of the notion of fact, which are ultimately in dispute; this makes argumentation difficult and inconclusive. The impression, it must be said, is not very encouraging as to the state of economics and the prospect of agreement among its leaders on " fundamentals " of pure science or theory, or on the relations of these to intelligent social economic policy. This impression of the book on the reviewer will tend to be reflected in a more accentuated form in the review itself. It is one of a somewhat weary, slightly impatient and dogmatic " rehash " of issues already worn threadbare with argument pro and con, argument which hardly seems to tend toward any result or end. In part this impression is connected with the present situation in the world of action. The course of events threatens to take out of the hands of peaceful discussion issues on which the supposedly competent and impartial specialists seem rather pitifully unable to get beyond the constant rethreshing of old straw. This situation tends to make even a participant in the discussion sympathetic with the attitude of the plain man and the practitioner. Such philosophic argumentation has something of the air of futility. Either it must somehow be out of relation to the realities, or else those who engage in it lack something essential, or they would at least know where and why they disagree. 1 National6konomie: Theorie des Handeins und Wirtschafitens. By Ludwig von Mi.ses. Geneva, Editions Union, I94Q0 xvi, 756 pp.

Professor Mises and the Theory of Capital

THIiis essay was begun as a review article on a recent volume from the pen of the deservedly eminent British economist, Professor Lionel Robbins of the London School of Economics.' It has grown and wandered to such an extent that the designation doubtfully fits. Rather, the discussion follows a certain custom of jumping off and to a degree "jumping on" the instigating work. My aim, to be kept in mind throughout, is not primarily criticism of the book's explicit content but rather discussion of some issues which it raises in my mind and which I think more important than those expressly treated. Apart from the rather inconsequential character, as it seems to me, of the task to which it is explicitly restricted-any intent to illuminate economic policy, which the title might suggest, is emphatically disclaimed (but I confess a faint spark of this ambition, if not the hope, as part of my excuse for this essay)-I find it permeated with argumentum ad hominem; and I am moved to oppose the judging of doctrines, or implication that they be judged, by the personal character or motives of those who have expounded them-or conversely. There are also implications respecting economic policy and intellectual history which invite critical comment. This is a very good book of its kind; the author undoubtedly had a right to choose the kind of book he would produce, and he has at the outset clearly informed his readers what to expect. The matter of criticism, of the book or the author, for the kind of performance rather than its quality, must be left to that well-known infallible (or at least final) authority, the always sober and intelligent reader. Modest in scope and packed with scholarly information, Robbins' book will be welcorned by students and teachers in the fields of history of doctrine and of economic policy. It combines material originally presented in two courses of lectures, and composition for oral delivery may justify some allowance as regards its polemical tone. The material has been worked over and well organized in six Lectures, with numerous section headings, now (including extensive footnotes) approximately doubling the presumable original length. It is provided with a fairly complete Index under proper-name headings. (A good subject index would have been a godsend to reviewers.) The first three Lectures and the last deal most directly with the main title; the fourth and fifth treat the special topic of "The Classical Economists and Socialism, " respectively "Hume to Senior" and "John Stuart Mill." These are explicitly mentioned here because they constitute an especially valuable and needed scholarly contribution (perhaps more particularly the second), and the space limits of an article will preclude considering them further. They do not pointedly raise the issues referred to as challenging discussion, and I merely express gratitude for them. The book will spare most readers, not specialists in its field, much laborious reading, or will fill gaps and make corrections in their knowledge due to its lack; and it will be informative and suggestive to any specialist. This applies particularly to writings out on the fringe of the main corpus. First in order, perhaps, is Jeremy Bentham who, as Robbins says (p. 2) is "more important as an economist than is often recognized." This service is hardly reduced now that Bentham's distinctively economic writings are being republished, in the three volumes

Theory of Economic Policy and the History of Doctrine

LOOKING through Professor Ayres' rather loose-jointed paper at the important problems he and I as students of economics share, I wish to divide my discussion between the two rather remotely separated fields of (i) the ethical judgment involved in economic discussion, and (2) the interpretation of history. Direct criticism of his paper will be given only where it clarifies the problems themselves.

Frank H. Knight

Papers

Professor Fisher's Interest Theory: A Case in Point

Professor Mises and the Theory of Capital

Theory of Economic Policy and the History of Doctrine

Intellectual Confusion on Morals and Economics

The economic organization with an article : notes on cost and utility