Markets and Innovation

Matt Clancy

This post provides a quick overview of claim articles in New Things Under the Sun related to how markets (broadly) affect innovation. It is designed more to help you quickly see what an article discusses, rather than to highlight the most important conclusions or takeaways.

Click one of the following links to jump to an article overview, or simply scroll down. Click on the title of any given overview to jump to the associated claim article on New Things Under the Sun. See also this index for a guide to articles on the related idea of the link between science and technology.

When extreme necessity is the mother of invention

Global crises vividly illustrate the linkage between need and innovation, without the need for any fancy statistical techniques.
- Covid-19 led to a clear surge in the number of clinical trials related to the disease, and the number of patent applications related to remote work
- The energy crisis of the 1970s led to a marked shift in the trajectory of energy efficiency progress
- World War II led to a rapid increase in the productivity of airplane manufacturing
Most of these innovations though, built on knowledge that had been built up over a long time though.

Pulling more fuel efficient cars into existence

Fuel prices exert a strong effect on the direction of technological progress, as measured by patents.
Emissions standards, measured properly, exert the same kind of effect.
Measures of technological progress which are based on the actual attributes of vehicles, rather than counting patents, also accelerate during times of high fuel prices or more stringent standards.
- This is true even when you restrict your attention to the set of cars sold in one market with broadly stable fuel prices and emissions standards, but who are facing pressure to meet higher emissions standards in other markets.
That said, most of the evidence considered relates to incremental changes; it is less clear policies that influence demand for certain characteristics are as effective at promoting radical innovation.

Medicine and the limits of market-driven innovation

Examines the relationship between profit motives and R&D in healthcare.
Financial incentives can lead to an increase in clinical trials and approved treatments, but appear to have little impact on basic research.
This is suggested by several studies examining the relationship between:
- policy changes / financial incentives and vaccine development
- market size and R&D in the pharmaceutical industry
- the US Medicare Part D extension and the direction of medical research.
- COVID-19 and the number therapies and academic publications of different types