Inventing IdeasPub Date : 2020-06-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190936075.003.0012
B. Khan
{"title":"Innovations in Law","authors":"B. Khan","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190936075.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190936075.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Administered systems involve regulation, while efficient markets in ideas require secure property rights and appropriate adjacent institutions. Disruptive technologies typically lead to institutional bottlenecks, which then require accommodations in legal rules and their enforcement. U.S. policy toward innovation and enterprise has always been distinguished by the central role of law and the judiciary. The evolution of legal rules and standards in the United States reveals a remarkable degree of flexibility and responsiveness to innovations. In the short run, the common law economized on legal adjustment costs through “adjudication by analogy,” whereas, in the long run, socioeconomic changes wrought by major inventions ultimately produced more fundamental adjustments in adjacent institutions. This institutional elasticity can be contrasted with the lack of transparency and rigidity that characterized most administered innovation institutions.","PeriodicalId":423757,"journal":{"name":"Inventing Ideas","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122781481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inventing IdeasPub Date : 2020-06-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190936075.003.0004
B. Khan
{"title":"Elites and Useful Knowledge in Britain","authors":"B. Khan","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190936075.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190936075.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"A longstanding claim attributes economic growth and technological change to social and scientific elites, who possess special knowledge that is unavailable to the general population. This chapter considers the significance of scientific training, costly human capital, and different types of knowledge during British industrialization by assessing the backgrounds, education, and inventive activity of major contributors to technological advances. The results show that scientists, engineers, or technicians were not well represented among the cadre of important British inventors, and many innovators remained unspecialized until very late in the nineteenth century. Informal institutions like apprenticeship and learning on the job efficiently helped creative individuals to increase their skills and productivity. Costly investments in specialized human capital and esoteric knowledge were less important than incentives for creativity, flexibility, and the ability to make incremental adjustments to produce innovations that are appropriate for prevailing conditions.","PeriodicalId":423757,"journal":{"name":"Inventing Ideas","volume":"166 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132001217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}