Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment Introduction.pdf

Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment David B. Audretsch* and A. Roy Thurik** * Institute for Development Strategies, Indiana University, Tinbergen Institute at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London and EIM Small Business Research and Consultancy, Zoetermeer email: daudrets@ **Centre for Advanced Small Business Economics (CASBEC) and Tinbergen Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam and EIM Small Business Research and Consultancy, Zoetermeer email:thurik@few.eur.nl August 1999 Abstract : The purpose of this paper is to introduce a series of articles on the links between innovation, the evolution of industry and employment. These relations provide the building blocks of a new industrial policy. The articles are included in Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment published by Cambridge University Press in 1999. The continued rising unemployment coupled with moderate growth in Europe has triggered a plea by policy makers for rethinking the policy approach that brought about European prosperity during the post-war era. The resulting policy debate has been cast in terms of an inevitable tradeoff between greater employment but at the sacrifice of lower wages on the one hand, versus the maintenance of wages and living standards but at the cost of less employment on the other. In terms of this debate, the Anglo-American solution has been the former, while the continental Europeans have chosen the latter. The purpose the thirteen articles of Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment is to sug