TY  - JOUR
AU  - Sorenson, Olav
TI  - Innovation Policy in a Networked World
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 23431
PY  - 2017
Y2  - May 2017
DO  - 10.3386/w23431
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23431
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23431.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Olav Sorenson
Yale School of Management
E-Mail: olav.sorenson@anderson.ucla.edu
M1  - published as Olav Sorenson. "Innovation Policy in a Networked World," in Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, editors, "Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 18" University of Chicago Press (2018)

M3  - presented at "Innovation Policy and the Economy", April 18, 2017
AB  - Social relationships channel information, influence, and access to scarce resources. As a consequence, social networks – the patterns of these relationships across the members of a community – influence who comes up with important innovations, whether and how rapidly those innovations get adopted, and who has the ability to commercialize them. They therefore also affect the overall rate at which innovation occurs in the economy. This essay provides an introduction to and review of the research on social networks most relevant to innovation, with a particular focus on the earliest stages of the innovation process. It then discusses the likely consequences of a variety of policy interventions that could either reduce the importance of social relationships to innovation or alter the patterns of relationships in ways that might promote innovation.
ER  -