Quality improvement versus cost reduction: A broader perspective on evolutionary economic change

Technology Analysis and Strategic Management

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 69-88

  Payson, Steven ^a  

^a NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041696076     PISSN: 09537325     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09537329808524305     Document Type: Review

References (28)

1. R. R. Nelson & S. G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982); N. Rosenberg, Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994).
2. R. R. Nelson & S. G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982); N. Rosenberg, Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994).
3. J. M. Juran, Juran on Quality by Design (New York, Juran Institute Inc., 1992).
4. T. Levitt, 'Marketing Myopia, Harvard Business Review, September/October, 1975, pp. 26-180.
5. W. D. Nordhaus, 'Do Real Output and Real Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not', Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1078, September, 1994.
6. S. Payson, 'An Analysis of Long-run Trends in the Prices of Goods and Services, as a Function of Evolutionary Changes in Quality, Production Costs, and Preferences', PhD dissertation in economics, Columbia University, 1991.
7. W. F. Mueller, 'The Origins of the Basic Inventions Underlying Du Font's Major Product and Process Innovations, 1920 to 1950', in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors (New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1962), pp. 323-346.
8. C. Freeman, The Economics of Industrial Innovation (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1986).
9. E. S. Maynes, 'The Concept and Measurement of Product Quality', in: N. E. Terleckyj (Ed.) Household Production and Consumption (New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1976).
10. W. Baumol, S. A. B. Blackman & E. Wolff, Productivity and American Leadership: The Long View (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1989).
11. D. C. Mowrey & N. Rosenberg, 'The Influence of Market Demand upon Innovation: A Critical Review of Some Empirical Studies', Research Policy, 8, 1979, pp. 102-153.
12. R. Prebish, 'The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems', United Nations Economic Conference on Latin America, 1950. Reprinted in Economic Bulletin for Latin America, 7, 1962, pp. 1-22.
13. R. Prebish, 'The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems', United Nations Economic Conference on Latin America, 1950. Reprinted in Economic Bulletin for Latin America, 7, 1962, pp. 1-22.
14. H. Singer, 'The Distribution of Gains between Investing and Borrowing Countries', American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 40, 1950, pp. 473-485.
15. A. Lewis, 'World Production, Prices and Trade, 1870-1960', Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 20, 1952, pp. 105-138.
16. K. Lancaster, Modern Consumer Theory (Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1991).
17. S. Payson, 'Regardless of Philosophy, Economics Will Not Be a Science Until It Is Based on Science', Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 19, 1996/97, pp. 257-274.
18. S. Payson, Quality Measurement in Economics: New Perspectives on the Evolution of Goods and Services (Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1994).
19. S. Payson, 'Product Evolution: What It Is and How It Can Be Measured', Eastern Economic Journal, 21, 1995, pp. 247-262.
20. According to the Magazine Publishers of America (6 March 1995), the average number of subscriptions in 1994 in the US for Business Week, Forbes and Fortune were 839 439, 734 962 and 719 576, respectively. The Economist also had high circulation in 1994 in the United States and the world, 222 286 respectively, according to its New York Office (5 June 1995).
21. Ideally, one would prefer weights based on a continuous variable, such as the number of words or the square inches taken up by an article (the latter having commonly been used in studies of article counts). Word counts are now feasible given the on-line availability of articles, but at the time the data were collected neither word counts nor area counts were feasible o\ving to the large number of articles (783) and the fact that they were read on hard copy. As indicated, the discrete weights that were chosen were based on the approximate length of an article, plus the idea that a cover story would likely receive more attention than other articles. Given the wide differences that exist between categories of advances in terms of coverage, the overall findings were not sensitive to the choice of weights. Furthermore, given the fact that the data are used primarily for illustrative purposes, and the articles themselves differ in the emphasis they place on their own central themes, a more detailed handling of weights might have been misleading.
22. Pharmaceuticals were classified in health under the 'specific areas of medicine' to which they applied, in accordance with identifying purposes served. Many other new chemicals and materials were associated with information processing, communications, health or public concerns and interests; as well as food production and machinery and vehicles. Consequently, the substances remaining in 'chemicals and materials' tended to be experimental, with the chance of being used in the future for a variety of purposes. Similarly, 'traditional production' included only machinery and vehicles that were not associated with already defined purposes. For example, it would not include electric cars whose primary purpose was classified under environmental protection.
23. S. Payson, 'The Difficulty of Measuring Capital, Revisited; Does Science Offer an Alternative', Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 56, 1997, 4, pp. 131-154.
24. S. Payson & J. Jankowski Jr, National Patterns of R&D Resources: 1996 (Arlington, VA, National Science Foundation, 1996) NSF 96-333. S. Payson, 'Product Evolution and the Classification of Business Interest in Scientific Advances', Knowledge and Policy, 9, 1996/97, pp. 3-26.
25. S. Payson & J. Jankowski Jr, National Patterns of R&D Resources: 1996 (Arlington, VA, National Science Foundation, 1996) NSF 96-333. S. Payson, 'Product Evolution and the Classification of Business Interest in Scientific Advances', Knowledge and Policy, 9, 1996/97, pp. 3-26.
26. C. Freeman, The Economics of Hope: Essays on Technical Change, Economic Growth and the Environment (New York, Pinter Publishers, 1992), p. 195.
27. V. Walsh, 'Design, Innovation and the Boundaries of the Firm', Research Policy, 25, 1996, pp. 509-529.
28. Payson, op. cit., Ref. 5.