Course teached as: B016453 - ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION Second Cycle Degree in ECONOMICS AND DEVELOPMENT Curriculum DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
Teaching Language
English
Course Content
Digital age. Data, information, knowledge. Technological trajectories and evolutions of techno-economic paradigms. Different approaches for analysing decision making processes. Morphological dynamics of firms and economic systems. Dynamics of socio-technical systems. Dynamic capabilities and new business models-
25 pdf files provided by the professor and drawn on the most impprtant international reviews.
Learning Objectives
The course pursues four objectives: 1) to expand the perspective developed during the preceding courses by taking the innovation processes into account. 2) To look into the analysis of decision processes of economic units by introducing information and knowledge processes within the economic evaluation. 3) To reinforce the analytical and theoretical framework by developing the awareness of importance of concepts relating to system thinking. 4) To foster the acquisition of a set of basic concepts in order to analyse innovation dynamics: taxonomy of innovations; techno-economic trajectories; complex adaptive systems; analytical and computational devices for representing the evolution of economies; organizational models such as hyperstructures, global production networks, and so on.
Prerequisites
Previous recommended examinations: Political Economy, International Economy, Econometrics.
Teaching Methods
Lectures by the prosessor, supported by a powerpoit presentation. Students cna choose to make a presentation on topics they consider very interesting. In this way they can acquire three additional point for the final exam.
Type of Assessment
Final written text, Lectureof five questions.
Course program
The digital age we are living in: The second economy (Arthur), Ubicomp (ubiquitous computing), “calm technology” (Weiser, 1991, 1993). The age of the spiritual machine (Kurzweil): what technology is. The starting point: the invention of invention (Landes, 1998). Technology and the Economy: some stylized facts. Taxonomy of innovations. Technological paradigms, technological trajectories, techno-economic landscapes. Innovation processes between path dependence and path creation. Decision making processes: standard mainstream paradigm and evolutionary approach. Basic concepts for the current Century (I): disruptive technologies, big data and data analytics, augmented reality, cloud computing,. and their consequences for business models.