Crisis and Innovations: Are they Constructive or Destructive?

An interdisciplinary approach was used to analyse multicomplex issues of the Covid-19 crisis, demonstrated also by the Economics of innovation. The Economics of innovation is useful when analysing a unique feedback of megatrends and the emergence of liminal crisis innovations. The purpose of this paper is, in spite of many statements to the contrary, to prove that innovative activity may serve as the key to unlocking a post-crisis economic development. Analyses presented in the paper are based on the Polish and foreign literature on the subject, reports on research conducted in many research centres and the author’s own observation at the Social Innovation Council. Three research themes are signalled: 1) the reality of the crisis in the aspect of Covid-19 pandemic and other crises in the literature studies and in practice; 2) innovation as the driving force for recovering from the Covid-19 crisis; 3) Coronavirus support: the activity of the state and social expectations. Conclusions and recommendations contained in this paper are, to a large extent, based on hermeneutics; they also stem from statistical data analyses and own research.

THE ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION IN THE PROSTHETIC AND ORTHOTICS INDUSTRY

Innovation is an important part of the prosthetic and orthotics (P&O) industry. Innovation has the potential to improve health care services and outcomes, however, it can also be a burden to the system if misdirected. This paper explores the interaction of innovation and economics within the P&O industry, focusing on its current state and future opportunities. Technological advancement, industry competition and pursuit of better patient outcomes drive innovation, while challenges in ensuring better P&O health care include lagging clinical evidence, limited access to data, and existing funding structures. There exists a greater need for inclusive models and frameworks for rehabilitation care, that focus on the use of appropriate technology as supported by research and evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Additionally, innovative business models based on social entrepreneurism could open access to untapped and underserved markets and provide greater access to assistive technology. Article PDF Link: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cpoj/article/view/35203/28318 How To Cite: Andrysek J. The economics of innovation in the prosthetic and orthotics industry. Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 2021; Volume 4, Issue 2, No.7. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v4i2.35203 Corresponding Author: Jan Andrysek, PhDHolland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, Canada.E-Mail: [email protected]; [email protected] ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4976-1228

Financing Innovation: A Complex Nexus of Risk & Reward

The crucial and growing role performed by different financial intermediaries such as venture capitalists and angel investors as well as more traditional intermediaries such as commercial banks in developing entrepreneurial or innovative firms and boosting product market innovations has led to great research interest in the economics of innovation and entrepreneurial finance. Besides this, there are some important factors or developments which have affected the entrepreneurial finance in general as well as its influence upon different entrepreneurial or innovative firms. Indeed, it is also true that the financial and ownership structures of the different entrepreneurial firms and the legal as well as the institutional environment, in which they operate, itself affects the product market innovations (Chemmanur and Fulghieri, 2014). Therefore, in this paper, I want to target a broad theme i.e. analysis of the mechanisms behind this scenario, especially, in the context of the Indian market system.

Innovation Is a Knowledge Problem

This chapter furnishes a new theoretical foundation for thinking about the economics of innovation and the innovation problem as a knowledge problem, and a collective action problem, and therefore a governance problem. The theory of the innovation commons is therefore based in new institutional economics. It builds on the analytic frameworks of four key theorists: Deirdre McCloskey on the moral and cultural foundations under which innovation can occur as an evolutionary social process; Friedrich Hayek on “use of knowledge in society,” on cultural evolution, on the ideas of both distributed knowledge and group selection; Oliver Williamson on the coordination problem of idiosyncratic investment under uncertainty and the hazards that contains; and Elinor Ostrom, who resolves the Hayek and Williamson knowledge conditions with a general solution to the collective action problem of knowledge discovery by pooling knowledge through institutional evolution.

Conclusion

The chapter concludes the book by placing innovation commons in a broader sweep of economic history in order to emphasize the institutional origin of innovation as an outcome of cooperative pooling of information and knowledge. It argues that cooperation to create a common pool resource in order to discover entrepreneurial opportunities is the evolutionary origin of innovation. It explains the institutional origin of innovation as the governance to facilitate this cooperation in order to solve the fundamental economic problem of discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity. The solution is in the use of institutions to pool distributed information. It explores implications for economic theory, and particularly the increased importance of institutional analysis for understanding the economics of innovation, industrial dynamics and economic evolution. It concludes by arguing that the innovation commons is the original sharing economy.

The Economics of Innovation, Knowledge Diffusion, and Globalization

A recent body of literature on quantitative general equilibrium models links the creation and diffusion of knowledge and technology to openness to international trade and to the activity of multinational firms. The unifying theme of this literature is methodological: productivities are Fréchet random variables and arise from Poisson innovation and diffusion processes for ideas. The main advantage of this modeling strategy is that it delivers closed-form solutions for key endogenous variables that have a direct counterpart in the data (e.g., prices, trade flows). This tractability makes the connection between theory and data transparent, helps clarify the determinants of the gains from openness, and facilitates the calculation of counterfactual equilibria.