Profile Major Works Resources

Richard R. Nelson, 1930- .

Evolutionary economist.

Richard R. Nelson studied at Oberlin College and subsequently Yale University, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1956. He subsequently became an economist at the RAND Corporation.  In the late 1950s,Nelson attended engineering and science courses at MIT to learn more about technology.  After a brief stint at Carnegie-Mellon in 1960, Nelson served on the CEA during the Kennedy administration.   Nelson rejoined the RAND Corporation, where he worked through the 1960s.  In 1968, Nelson returned to academia, as professor of economic at Yale University, where he would remain for nearly two decades.  Nelson became professor at Columbia since 1986.

Richard Nelson focus has been on technological innovation, productivity and long-term growth and change.  Nelson's 1959 paper put forth the market failure justification for government support for technical innovation, arguing that firms invest less in research & development than is socially optimal.  However, Nelson would go on later to denounce the "market failure" approach as a "disastrous way to think about the role of the state", and turned to evolutionary economics as a more productive approach.  Nelson's most famous work is probably his ground-breaking Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change with Sidney J. Winter (1982) which became a classic of evolutionary economics.

 

  

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Major Works of Richard R. Nelson

  • "A Theory of the Low Level Equilibrium Trap in Developing Countries", 1956, AER.
  • "The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research" 1959, Journal of Political Economy, v.67 (3), p.297 [pdf, js]
  • "Aggregate Production Functions and Medium-Range Growth Projections", 1964 AER.
  • "Introduction" 1962, in Nelson, editor, The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors [nber, pdf]
  • "The Link Between Science and Invention: the case of the Transistor", 1962, in Nelson, editor, The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity:[pdf]
  • "Investments in Humans, Technological Diffusion and Economic Growth", with E.S. Phelps, 1966, AER.
  • "A ‘Diffusion’ Model of International Productivity Differences in Manufacturing Industry", 1968, AER.
  • Technology, Economic Growth, and Public Policy, with M.J. Peck and E.D. Kalachek, 1968.
  • "Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Economic Capabilities", with S.G. Winter, 1973, AER.
  • "Neoclassical vs. Evolutionary Theories of Economic Growth: Critique and Prospectus", 1974, EJ.
  • "In Search of Useful Theory of Innovation", with S.G. Winter, 1977, Research Policy.
  • The Moon and the Ghetto, 1977.
  • "Assessing Private Enterprise: Parsimony, responsiveness, innovativeness", 1981, Bell JE.
  • "The Role of Knowledge in R&D Efficiency", 1982, QJE.
  • An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, with Sidney G. Winter, 1982
  • High Technology Policies: A five nation comparison, 1984
  • "Appropriating the returns from industrial research and development" with R.C. Levin, A.K. Klevorick and S.G. Winter, 1987, BPEA.
  • "Institutions supporting technical change in the United States", 1988 in G. Dosi, R. Nelson, R. Silverberg and L. Soete, editors, Technical Change and Economic Theory.
  • "Policy Conclusions" with L. Soete, 1988, in G. Dosi et al, Technical Change and Economic Theory.
  • "Capitalism as an Engine of Progress", 1990, Research Policy.
  • "Why do Firms Differ, and How Does it Matter?", 1991, Strategic Management Journal.
  • "The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership", with G. Wright, 1992, JEL.
  • "Technological Innovation and National Systems", with N. Rosenberg, 1993 in Nelson, editor, National Innovation Systems: A comparative analysis.
  • "A Retrospective", 1993 in Nelson, editor, National Innovation Systems.
  • "On Limiting or Encouraging Rivalry in Technical Progress", with R. Merges, 1994, JEBO.
  • "American Universities and Technical Advance in Industry" with N. Rosenberg, 1994, Research Policy.
  • "The Coevolution of Technology and Institutions", 1994, Industrial and Corporate Change.
  • "Recent Evolutionary Theorizing About Economic Change", 1995, JEL.
  • The Sources of Economic Growth, 1996.
  • "Factors Behind Cross-Industry Differences in Technical Progress" with E. Wolff, 1997, SCED.
  • "The Agenda for Growth Theory: A Different Point of View", 1998, Cambridge JE.
  • "Introduction" with D.C. Mowery, 1999, in Mowery & Nelson, editors, Sources of Industrial Leadership: Studies of Seven Industries.
  • "The Asian Growth Miracle and Modern Growth Theory" with H. Pack, 1999, EJ.
  • "Introduction" with G. Dosi and S. Winter, 2001, in The Nature and Dynamics of Organizational Capabilities.
  • "Making sense of institutions as a factor shaping economic performance" with B.N. Sampat, 2001, JEBO.
  • "Evolutionary Theorizing in Economics" with S.G. Winter, 2003, JEP [aea]
  • "Richard Nelson on Sidney Winter: Origins and Factors Shaping Our Joint Work Developing an Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change" [at etss]
  • "On the Nature and Evolution of Human Know-how", with K. Nelson, 2002, Research Policy.
  • "The Problem of Market Bias in Modern Capitalist Economies", 2002, Research Policy.
  • "On the Uneven Evolution of Human Know-how", 2003, Research Policy  [draft pdf]
  • "Physical and Social Technologies and their Evoluition", 2003, Econ Appliquee.
  • Technology, Institutions and Economic Growth, 2005.
  • "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes", with G. Dosi, 2010, in B.H. Hall and Rosenberg, N., eds., Handbook of the Economics of Innovation v.1. Ch.3 (p.51). [2009 version: pdf]
  • "An Interpretive History of Challenges to Neoclassical Microeconomics and How They have Fared", with R. Mazzoleni (2013), Industrial and Corporate Change.
  • "Economics from an Evolutionary Perspective", 2018, in Modern Evolutionary Economics: An Overview.
     

 
HET

 
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Resources on  Richard Nelson

  • R. Nelson's homepage at Center for Capitalism and Society at Columbia
  • "Nelson, Richard R." by Prof. Murmann [site]
  • "The Evolution of Dick Nelson" by Sidney G. Winter [etss]
  • "The Moon and the Ghetto Revisited", Richard Nelson's talk in Valencia [youtube]
  • "Rethinking the State", featuring Richard Nelson, 2013 [youtube]

 

 
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