Technical Progress and Co-Invention in Computing and in the Uses of Computers
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity MicroeconomicsPublished 1 January 1996
Timothy F. Bresnahan, Shane Greenstein, David Brownstone, Ken Flamm
Citations258
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Abstract
Technical Progress and Co-invention in Computing and in the Uses of ComputersWHY DO SOME technologies offer opportunities for widespread economic change?Purely technical progress is rarely sufficient to make an invention economically important.Users, through their own experimentation and discovery, make technology more valuable.We call this activity co-invention to distinguish it from original invention.Coinvention is potentially complex and uncertain, and it can be a bottleneck in technical progress.Yet the complementarity between inventions by users and by technologists can benefit a wide range of economic activities.Understanding co-invention is a key to understanding the economic payoff to invention in new information technologies today.'
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EngineeringBusiness, Management and Accounting
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