Technological change is disruptive, and in the long sweep of human history, that disruption is one of the fundamental sources of economic growth and what Deirdre McCloskey calls the Great Enrichment: In 1800 the average income per person…all over the planet was…an average of $3 a day. Imagine living in present-day Rio or Athens or …
Technological Change, Culture, and a “Social License to Operate” Read More »
Over the past week it’s been hard to keep up with the news about Uber. Uber’s creative destruction is rapid, and occurring on multiple dimensions in different places. And while the focus right now is on Uber’s disruption in the shared transportation market, I suspect that more disruption will arise in other markets too. Start …
The Political Economy of Uber’s Multi-dimensional Creative Destruction Read More »
Jill Lepore, a professor of history at Harvard and writer for the New Yorker, has written a critique of Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation that is worth thinking through. Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma (the dilemma is for firms to continue making the same decisions that made them successful, which will lead to their downfall) …
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article about the use, overuse, and misuse of the word “innovation” in modern business, particularly with respect to consumer products. The number of instances of S&P 500 CEOs using the word in their earnings calls has doubled since 2007. Sadly, this misuse and overuse threatens to remove all meaning …
Today a new mall is opening in Rosemont, near O’Hare Airport and the Rosemont Convention Center. The Fashion Outlets of Chicago will have a range of familiar factory outlet stores and restaurants, conveniently located near the airport and public transportation (I could even take the el there from KP Chicago HQ!). So what? According to its …
New Chicago Mall and Schumpeterian Disruptive Innovation Read More »
Lynne Kiesling The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson parses Mary Meeker’s annual state of the Internet presentation, which includes some nifty and insightful analyses of data. Here’s my favorite: Note that this is in percentage terms, so it doesn’t show the overall increase in the number and variety of digital devices used — the number of devices …
Lynne Kiesling If you want good examples of Schumpeterian competition, it doesn’t get much better than this: Amazon to take on Apple this summer with a Samsung-built tablet? The Engadget folks make … a very reasoned argument that paints Amazon, not Samsung or the rest of the traditional consumer electronics industry, as Apple’s chief competition …
Lynne Kiesling Even if it doesn’t end up being the disruptive innovation that these articles suggest, Verizon’s MiFI personal wifi hotspot device makes my little Schumpeterian heart go pitter-pat. Released yesterday, the Verizon MiFi (device by Novatel) is a credit-card sized 3G wireless router that can provide wireless Internet connection for up to 5 devices. …
Perennial Gale of Creative Destruction, Personal Wireless Division Read More »
Michael Giberson Occasionally we hear from readers curious about the blog name, “knowledge problem.” Edmund Phelps explains the knowledge problem in an excellent essay that appeared in the Financial Times. (Registration may be required for FT.com; the essay is also posted in full at the FT‘s Capitalism blog.) Joseph Schumpeter’s early theory proposed that a …
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive