The Theory of Innovation Schumpeter, Christensen, Rogers, Kondratieff, Perez, and the schools that debate how innovation happens
A mind map of the theory of innovation as a field — the classical antecedents; the Schumpeterian tradition; neoclassical and endogenous growth; diffusion and learning curves; evolutionary and systems approaches; and the modern management, policy, and stagnation debates. Named thinkers, books, models, and debates with dates across six branches. This map is the theoretical spine of the Mind Maps "survey of innovation" series.
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Classical Antecedents, pre-1900 Schumpeterian Tradition Neoclassical & Endogenous Growth Diffusion & Learning Curves Evolutionary & Systems Modern Management & Policy Classical political economy Heroic-inventor narratives Early machinery and manufacturing Max Weber and rationalization Proto-diffusion observations Joseph Schumpeter — the founder Kondratieff and the long waves Neo-Schumpeterian revival Carlota Perez and technological surges Induced innovation Solow growth model Romer and endogenous growth Schumpeterian growth Measurement and data Mokyr and the economic history of ideas Ideas-are-harder-to-find Everett Rogers — the canonical framework Bass model and formal diffusion Learning curves and experience Network effects Moore's Law and exponential forecasting Schmookler and demand-pull Nelson-Winter evolutionary economics Brian Arthur and increasing returns Path dependence and history matters Dosi and technological paradigms National innovation systems STS — the social construction lineage Open innovation Christensen and disruption Dynamic capabilities and resources Porter and strategy backdrop Lean, agile, and business-model innovation Mission economics and the state The stagnation debate Contemporary manifestos Adam Smith — Wealth of Nations, 1776 (division of labor, pin factory) David Ricardo — machinery chapter, Principles 3rd ed. 1821 Karl Marx — Grundrisse (1857) and Capital (1867) — technology as historical driver Friedrich List — National System of Political Economy, 1841 (infant industry) John Rae — Statement of Some New Principles, 1834 (early innovation theorist) Thomas Carlyle — "Signs of the Times," 1829 (the Age of Machinery) Samuel Smiles — Lives of the Engineers, 1861–1862 Biographies of Watt, Arkwright, Stephenson shape public narrative Great Man theory of invention — later critiqued by Schumpeter and STS Charles Babbage — On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 1832 Andrew Ure — The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835 Adam Ferguson — Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1767 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1904–1905 Bureaucracy and the iron cage — institutional conditions for innovation Gabriel Tarde — The Laws of Imitation, 1890 (first theory of social diffusion) Observations on railroad, telegraph spread in 19th century Theory of Economic Development, 1911 / English 1934 Business Cycles (2 vols.), 1939 — long waves, innovation clusters Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942 — creative destruction chapter Entrepreneur vs. inventor distinction — innovation as commercialization Schumpeter Mark I (entrepreneur-led) vs. Mark II (corporate R&D) Kondratieff long waves endorsed as innovation-driven Nikolai Kondratieff — The Major Economic Cycles, 1925 (translated 1935) ~50-year waves driven by infrastructural technology clusters Kondratieff executed, 1938 — work suppressed in USSR, revived by Schumpeter Forrester system-dynamics long waves, 1977 — computational formalization Gerhard Mensch — Stalemate in Technology, 1975 (depression-triggered innovation clusters) Christopher Freeman — Economics of Industrial Innovation, 1974 SPRU — Science Policy Research Unit, Sussex, founded 1966 Freeman & Soete — Economics of Industrial Innovation, 3rd ed. 1997 Nathan Rosenberg — Inside the Black Box, 1982 (learning by using) Perez — Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, 2002 Five technological revolutions: industrial, steam, steel, oil/mass production, ICT Installation vs. deployment phases — the role of financial bubbles Great surges framework — causal pattern of 50-year cycles Turning point: the mid-surge crisis that separates installation from deployment John Hicks — Theory of Wages, 1932 (induced innovation hypothesis) Hayami & Ruttan — Agricultural Development, 1971 (induced innovation in agriculture) Acemoglu — Directed Technical Change, QJE 2002 Robert Solow — A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth, QJE 1956 Solow — Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function, RES 1957 The "Solow residual" — unexplained productivity growth attributed to technology Technology as exogenous in original Solow model Solow wins Nobel, 1987 Paul Romer — Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth, JPE 1986 Romer — Endogenous Technological Change, JPE 1990 Ideas as nonrival goods — the formal foundation of modern growth theory Romer wins Nobel, 2018 Jones — R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth, JPE 1995 (scale effects critique) Aghion & Howitt — A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction, Econometrica 1992 Quality-ladder models — innovation as replacement of existing goods Aghion, Akcigit, Howitt — Handbook chapter, 2014 Klenow & Rodriguez-Clare — development accounting (TFP vs. factor accumulation) Zvi Griliches — hybrid corn diffusion and R&D returns, 1957 Griliches — Issues in Assessing the Contribution of R&D, Bell Journal 1979 NBER Patent Data Project — Hall, Jaffe, Trajtenberg, 2001 Adam Jaffe — knowledge spillovers, QJE 1989 Total factor productivity growth measurement — Jorgenson, Hulten Oslo Manual — OECD innovation measurement standard, 1992 (revised 1997, 2005, 2018) Joel Mokyr — The Lever of Riches, 1990 Mokyr — The Gifts of Athena, 2002 (propositional vs. prescriptive knowledge) Mokyr — The Enlightened Economy, 2009 Mokyr — A Culture of Growth, 2016 (Industrial Enlightenment) Bloom, Jones, Van Reenen, Webb — Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?, AER 2020 Research productivity halves roughly every 13 years across sectors Constant per-researcher output requires exponentially more researchers Rogers — Diffusion of Innovations, 1st ed. 1962 (5th ed. 2003) Five adopter categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards Five innovation attributes: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability S-shaped adoption curve as empirical regularity Rogers' career at Iowa State, Michigan State, New Mexico Frank Bass — A New Product Growth Model for Consumer Durables, Mgmt Sci 1969 Innovation + imitation coefficients (p and q) Bass model fits TVs, air conditioners, clothes dryers with one equation Logistic / Gompertz / Verhulst curves as diffusion formalisms Modified Bass with marketing variables — Bass, Krishnan, Jain, 1994 T. P. Wright — Factors Affecting the Cost of Airplanes, JAS 1936 Wright's Law — cost declines by fixed % per doubling of cumulative production BCG experience curve — Bruce Henderson, 1968 Learning rate ~20% in many industries (each doubling cuts costs by ~20%) Nagy, Farmer, Bui, Trancik — Statistical Basis for Predicting Technological Progress, PLoS 2013 Solar PV learning rate ~24% per doubling — Trancik group Battery learning rate ~18% — Ziegler & Trancik, 2021 Robert Metcalfe — Metcalfe's Law (network value ∝ n²), 1980 Reed's Law — group-forming network value ∝ 2^n, 1999 Michael Katz & Carl Shapiro — Network Externalities, Competition, AER 1985 Two-sided markets — Rochet & Tirole, 2003 David Easley & Jon Kleinberg — Networks, Crowds, and Markets, 2010 Gordon Moore — Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits, 1965 Moore's 1975 revised doubling time (every ~2 years) Kurzweil — Law of Accelerating Returns, The Singularity Is Near 2005 Dennard scaling breakdown, ~2005 — end of free frequency gains Jacob Schmookler — Invention and Economic Growth, 1966 Demand-pull: patent rates track capital investment, not scientific discovery Mowery & Rosenberg critique — technology push still matters Science-push vs. demand-pull — the canonical debate Richard Nelson & Sidney Winter — An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, 1982 Routines as the genes of organizations Search + selection + retention as evolutionary mechanism Critique of representative-firm equilibrium Nelson earlier — The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity, 1962 (edited volume) Arthur — Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In, EJ 1989 Path dependence — accidental early advantages get magnified Arthur — The Nature of Technology, 2009 (combinatorial evolution) Santa Fe Institute — founded 1984 Paul David — Clio and the Economics of QWERTY, AER 1985 QWERTY as lock-in case study (contested by Liebowitz & Margolis, 1995) Path dependence — contingent histories produce persistent structure Douglass North — Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 1990 Giovanni Dosi — Technological Paradigms and Technological Trajectories, Research Policy 1982 Paradigms define what problems are worth solving; trajectories are moves within Dosi & Nelson — An Introduction to Evolutionary Theories in Economics, 1994 Technological regime concept (Nelson-Winter) — stable path of cumulative improvement Freeman — Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Japan, 1987 (coins NIS) Bengt-Åke Lundvall — National Systems of Innovation, 1992 (edited volume) Nelson — National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis, 1993 (edited volume) Regional innovation systems — Cooke, Asheim Triple helix: university–industry–government — Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1995 Bruno Latour & Steve Woolgar — Laboratory Life, 1979 Trevor Pinch & Wiebe Bijker — Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts, SSS 1984 Michel Callon — Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation, 1986 Langdon Winner — Do Artifacts Have Politics?, Daedalus 1980 Susan Leigh Star — infrastructure studies; often undercredited SCOT — Social Construction of Technology framework Henry Chesbrough — Open Innovation, 2003 Closed → open innovation as paradigm shift for R&D labs Eric von Hippel — Democratizing Innovation, 2005 (user innovation) Community-based innovation — Benkler, 2006 Clayton Christensen — The Innovator's Dilemma, 1997 Disruptive vs. sustaining innovation Low-end and new-market disruption as distinct patterns Christensen & Raynor — The Innovator's Solution, 2003 Jobs-to-be-done framework Christensen's retrospective — What Is Disruptive Innovation?, HBR 2015 Lepore critique — The Disruption Machine, New Yorker 2014 Edith Penrose — Theory of the Growth of the Firm, 1959 (resource-based view ancestor) Wernerfelt — A Resource-Based View of the Firm, SMJ 1984 Hamel & Prahalad — The Core Competence of the Corporation, HBR 1990 David Teece, Pisano & Shuen — Dynamic Capabilities, SMJ 1997 Absorptive capacity — Cohen & Levinthal, ASQ 1990 Michael Porter — Competitive Strategy, 1980 Competitive Advantage, 1985 — value chain; innovation as part of differentiation Five forces framework — the incumbent-firm lens Christensen later disrupts Eric Ries — The Lean Startup, 2011 Build-Measure-Learn; minimum viable product; pivots Alexander Osterwalder — Business Model Generation, 2010 Steve Blank — The Four Steps to the Epiphany, 2005 Design thinking — IDEO, Stanford d.school; Tim Brown, 2008 Mariana Mazzucato — The Entrepreneurial State, 2013 State as risk-taker and innovator, not just market-failure corrector Mazzucato — Mission Economy, 2021 DARPA, NIH, NASA, NSF as evidence Industrial policy revival — CHIPS Act 2022, IRA 2022 Tyler Cowen — The Great Stagnation, 2011 Robert Gordon — The Rise and Fall of American Growth, 2016 Peter Thiel — Zero to One, 2014 ("we were promised flying cars") Alex Tabarrok — Launching the Innovation Renaissance, 2011 Mokyr counterargument — we are mid-revolution; productivity lags Bloom et al. 2020 empirical update — ideas getting harder to find Patrick Collison & Tyler Cowen — Progress Studies, Atlantic 2019 Marc Andreessen — The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, 2023 Effective accelerationism (e/acc) — Beff Jezos et al., ~2022 AI-safety community — Eliezer Yudkowsky, MIRI, EA-adjacent Dario Amodei — Machines of Loving Grace, 2024 Progress Studies Institute — Patrick Collison, Tyler Cowen, others The Theory of Innovation Brian Tighe · Mind Maps Orbital mind map. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, or use the buttons above (+ / − / 0 keys also work). Hover a node to highlight its path to the center and the subtree beneath it. How to read this The center holds the topic. The six branches fan out bilaterally — three on each side — each in its own color. Sub-branches nest three levels deep under each top-level branch. Hover a leaf to trace the path back to the center; hover a branch to see everything it contains.
This is the shape the topic has when you try to hold the whole field in your head at once. It is not an argument; it is a scaffold. The essays argue against or within scaffolds like this one.