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R. Lipsey

Simon Fraser University, Economics, Emeritus

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Emeritus Professor of Economics Simon Fraser University Vancouver Canada, officer of the Order of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Econometric Society. Originally author, now co-author, of a UK economics text book now in its 14th edition. The book General Purpose Technologies and Long Term Economic Growth won the Schumpeter Prize for best work on evolutionary economics. Current work is on empirical investigations of the efficacy of Industrial Policies.

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Maryann Feldman

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of British Columbia

Edward Hunter Christie

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

The University of Arizona

University of Waikato

Dieter Franz Kogler

University College Dublin

Matheus Dall'Agnol

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Papers by R. Lipsey

TECHNOLOGY, r&d, INDUSTRIAL, AND SCIENCE POLICIES: PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR interactIONS That encouragE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE

This paper distinguishes four types of public policies that seek to encourage growth-inducing tec... more This paper distinguishes four types of public policies that seek to encourage growth-inducing technological advance: technology, R&D, industrial, and science policies. The first three are typically treated under the single heading ‘industrial policy’, which is a source of confusion since each is administered by different agents and often with different objectives. Evidence of successes and failures of any one of the policies defined here is often incorrectly taken to apply to the other policies. Evidence for the symbiotic relation between the public and the private sectors is outlined, although typically ignored by in formal growth theories. The massive influence of science policy on economic growth, also typically ignored by in growth theories, is a largely unintended byproduct of scientific advance. A policy implication of the approach in this paper is to stress science, technology, and R&D policies, putting much less stress on industrial policy as defined here.

Key Words: Industrial policy, science policy, technology, economic growth, R&D.

JEL Classifications: 023, 025, 035, 043.

The Past, Present and Future of the GPT-Driven Modern ICT Revolution:'Blue Report

... Prepared by Kenneth I. Carlaw Department of Economics UBC Okanagan 3333 University Way Kelown... more

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: The Selected Essays of B. Curtis Eaton and Richard G. Lipsey

The Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue canadienne d'Economique, 1998

An academic directory and search engine.

Comparison Shopping and the Clustering of Homogeneous Firms*

Journal of Regional Science, 1979

In his famous 1929 article on duopoly in space, Hotelling [15] explained why two competing duopol... more

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: An Overview

Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essay... more Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essays published by Edward Elgar. 1 These essays deal with the important implications of allowing for the distribution of goods in characteristic space and of producers in geographic space. Although several of the essays in this book are frequently cited, the overall view of the economy that together they imply, and is given in the introduction, has seldom been cited, presumably because it was not published elsewhere as were most of the other essays. 2

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: An Overview

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography, 1997

Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essay... more Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essays published by Edward Elgar. 1 These essays deal with the important implications of allowing for the distribution of goods in characteristic space and of producers in geographic space. Although several of the essays in this book are frequently cited, the overall view of the economy that together they imply, and is given in the introduction, has seldom been cited, presumably because it was not published elsewhere as were most of the other essays. 2

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: An Overview

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography, 1997

Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essay... more Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essays published by Edward Elgar. 1 These essays deal with the important implications of allowing for the distribution of goods in characteristic space and of producers in geographic space. Although several of the essays in this book are frequently cited, the overall view of the economy that together they imply, and is given in the introduction, has seldom been cited, presumably because it was not published elsewhere as were most of the other essays.

Workbook for the Seventh Edition of An Introduction to Positive Economics

Trade Credit and Monetary Policy

The Economic Journal, 1963

Incomes Policy: A Re-Appraisal

Economica, 1970

In this paper we examine the effects of the policies of wage and price restraint that have at var... more In this paper we examine the effects of the policies of wage and price restraint that have at various times been employed in Britain since 1945. We have taken the two-equation model that has been studied extensively in the context of data for both the United Kingdom and the United States,2 and have assumed that, although far from perfect, this model will be a good enough statistical description of wage and price inflation to allow it to catch any major influence of wage and price restraints. In order to see how the potential effects of incomes policies should be specified in this two-equation model, we are forced to examine the derivation of the equations in some detail. In this process we discover that shift dummies which have been used by other investigators3 to catch the effects of incomes policies are inappropriate and that their use can give rise to misleading results. After conducting tests more satisfactory than those employing shift dummies, we conclude that the data are not inconsistent with the view that wage and price restraints have usually been ineffective in restraining inflation, and also that the restraints have sometimes actually had the effect of raising the rate of inflation above what it would otherwise have been. This perverse effect is very noticeable in the most recent periods of "restraint" since 1966.

Une evaluation structuraliste des politiques technologiques-pertinence du modele schumpeterien

Gouvernement du Canada-Industrial …, 1998

Dans cette monographie, nous evaluons un echantillon de politiques gouvernementales visant a infl... more

Successes and failures in the transformation of economics

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2001

Abstract While acknowledging the successes of modern economics, this paper concentrates on some s... more Abstract While acknowledging the successes of modern economics, this paper concentrates on some shortcomings. Many are traced to a single source: the great
insights of economics are all qualitative. Economics does not have a theoretical
structure that is tightly related to a rich body of data and those seeking to contribute
to its ideas operate on widely divergent levels of theoretical and empirical
sophistication with little communication between those who operate at different
levels. One consequence is that anomalies are tolerated on a scale that would be
scandalous in any natural science. Another is that theories tend to be developed in
unconstrained ways that are empirically relevant only by accident. Elegant error is
often preferred to messy truth. Theoretical tractability is often preferred to
empirical relevance. Economists often prefer theories that produce unambiguous policy results over theories that do not, irrespective of their relative evidential bases. Keywords: methodology, abstraction, formalism, empirical relevance, second best,
industrial policy, optimality, qualitative insights

Science, Institutions, and the Industrial Revolution

by Cliff Bekar and R. Lipsey

Economic growth related to mutually interdependent institutions and technology

Journal of Institutional Economics, 2009

This paper argues that technological advance is a necessary condition for sustained economic grow... more This paper argues that technological advance is a necessary condition for sustained economic growth. Technologies and institutions co-evolve in a system of mutual causation. Although some institutions inhibit growth while others encourage it, no single institution is either necessary or sufficient to produce sustained growth. However, some non-unique bundle of encouraging institutions is necessary. Sustained growth began with the Industrial Revolutions that did not just 'fall out of the blue' but were instead the culmination of three trajectories of technological advance in steam power, electric power, and the mechanization of textile manufacturing. These stretched over several centuries. Growth then became sustained when the West 'invented how to invent'. A necessary condition for the Industrial Revolutions was Western science whose roots lie as far back as the scholastic philosophers and the medieval universities. Its absence elsewhere is a sufficient reason why no other place developed its own indigenous industrial revolution.

R&D and innovation at the firm level: improving the S&T policy information base

Research Evaluation

Comparison Shopping and Clusters of Homogeneous Firms

by Curtis Eaton and R. Lipsey

Working Papers, 1976

THE THEORY OF CUSTOMS UNIONS: A GENERAL SURVEY11An earlier version of this paper was read before the Conference of the Association of University Teachers of Economics at Southampton, January 1959. I am indebted for comments and suggestions to G. C. Archibald, K. Klappholz and Professor L. Robbins

International Economics Policies and their Theoretical Foundations, 1982

In Elhanan Helpman (ed.) General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth. Cambridge; MIT Press, 1998

Unsuspected Perversities in the Theory of Location

by Curtis Eaton and R. Lipsey

The non-uniqueness of equilibrium in the Loschian location model

by Curtis Eaton and R. Lipsey

TECHNOLOGY, r&d, INDUSTRIAL, AND SCIENCE POLICIES: PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR interactIONS That encouragE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE

This paper distinguishes four types of public policies that seek to encourage growth-inducing tec... more This paper distinguishes four types of public policies that seek to encourage growth-inducing technological advance: technology, R&D, industrial, and science policies. The first three are typically treated under the single heading ‘industrial policy’, which is a source of confusion since each is administered by different agents and often with different objectives. Evidence of successes and failures of any one of the policies defined here is often incorrectly taken to apply to the other policies. Evidence for the symbiotic relation between the public and the private sectors is outlined, although typically ignored by in formal growth theories. The massive influence of science policy on economic growth, also typically ignored by in growth theories, is a largely unintended byproduct of scientific advance. A policy implication of the approach in this paper is to stress science, technology, and R&D policies, putting much less stress on industrial policy as defined here.

Key Words: Industrial policy, science policy, technology, economic growth, R&D.

JEL Classifications: 023, 025, 035, 043.

The Past, Present and Future of the GPT-Driven Modern ICT Revolution:'Blue Report

... Prepared by Kenneth I. Carlaw Department of Economics UBC Okanagan 3333 University Way Kelown... more

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: The Selected Essays of B. Curtis Eaton and Richard G. Lipsey

The Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue canadienne d'Economique, 1998

An academic directory and search engine.

Comparison Shopping and the Clustering of Homogeneous Firms*

Journal of Regional Science, 1979

In his famous 1929 article on duopoly in space, Hotelling [15] explained why two competing duopol... more

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: An Overview

Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essay... more Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essays published by Edward Elgar. 1 These essays deal with the important implications of allowing for the distribution of goods in characteristic space and of producers in geographic space. Although several of the essays in this book are frequently cited, the overall view of the economy that together they imply, and is given in the introduction, has seldom been cited, presumably because it was not published elsewhere as were most of the other essays. 2

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: An Overview

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography, 1997

Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essay... more Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essays published by Edward Elgar. 1 These essays deal with the important implications of allowing for the distribution of goods in characteristic space and of producers in geographic space. Although several of the essays in this book are frequently cited, the overall view of the economy that together they imply, and is given in the introduction, has seldom been cited, presumably because it was not published elsewhere as were most of the other essays. 2

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography: An Overview

On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography, 1997

Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essay... more Here we reproduce the table of contents and the introductory chapter to our book of related essays published by Edward Elgar. 1 These essays deal with the important implications of allowing for the distribution of goods in characteristic space and of producers in geographic space. Although several of the essays in this book are frequently cited, the overall view of the economy that together they imply, and is given in the introduction, has seldom been cited, presumably because it was not published elsewhere as were most of the other essays.

Workbook for the Seventh Edition of An Introduction to Positive Economics

Trade Credit and Monetary Policy

The Economic Journal, 1963

Incomes Policy: A Re-Appraisal

Economica, 1970

In this paper we examine the effects of the policies of wage and price restraint that have at var... more In this paper we examine the effects of the policies of wage and price restraint that have at various times been employed in Britain since 1945. We have taken the two-equation model that has been studied extensively in the context of data for both the United Kingdom and the United States,2 and have assumed that, although far from perfect, this model will be a good enough statistical description of wage and price inflation to allow it to catch any major influence of wage and price restraints. In order to see how the potential effects of incomes policies should be specified in this two-equation model, we are forced to examine the derivation of the equations in some detail. In this process we discover that shift dummies which have been used by other investigators3 to catch the effects of incomes policies are inappropriate and that their use can give rise to misleading results. After conducting tests more satisfactory than those employing shift dummies, we conclude that the data are not inconsistent with the view that wage and price restraints have usually been ineffective in restraining inflation, and also that the restraints have sometimes actually had the effect of raising the rate of inflation above what it would otherwise have been. This perverse effect is very noticeable in the most recent periods of "restraint" since 1966.

Une evaluation structuraliste des politiques technologiques-pertinence du modele schumpeterien

Gouvernement du Canada-Industrial …, 1998

Dans cette monographie, nous evaluons un echantillon de politiques gouvernementales visant a infl... more

Successes and failures in the transformation of economics

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2001

Abstract While acknowledging the successes of modern economics, this paper concentrates on some s... more Abstract While acknowledging the successes of modern economics, this paper concentrates on some shortcomings. Many are traced to a single source: the great
insights of economics are all qualitative. Economics does not have a theoretical
structure that is tightly related to a rich body of data and those seeking to contribute
to its ideas operate on widely divergent levels of theoretical and empirical
sophistication with little communication between those who operate at different
levels. One consequence is that anomalies are tolerated on a scale that would be
scandalous in any natural science. Another is that theories tend to be developed in
unconstrained ways that are empirically relevant only by accident. Elegant error is
often preferred to messy truth. Theoretical tractability is often preferred to
empirical relevance. Economists often prefer theories that produce unambiguous policy results over theories that do not, irrespective of their relative evidential bases. Keywords: methodology, abstraction, formalism, empirical relevance, second best,
industrial policy, optimality, qualitative insights

Science, Institutions, and the Industrial Revolution

by Cliff Bekar and R. Lipsey

Economic growth related to mutually interdependent institutions and technology

Journal of Institutional Economics, 2009

This paper argues that technological advance is a necessary condition for sustained economic grow... more This paper argues that technological advance is a necessary condition for sustained economic growth. Technologies and institutions co-evolve in a system of mutual causation. Although some institutions inhibit growth while others encourage it, no single institution is either necessary or sufficient to produce sustained growth. However, some non-unique bundle of encouraging institutions is necessary. Sustained growth began with the Industrial Revolutions that did not just 'fall out of the blue' but were instead the culmination of three trajectories of technological advance in steam power, electric power, and the mechanization of textile manufacturing. These stretched over several centuries. Growth then became sustained when the West 'invented how to invent'. A necessary condition for the Industrial Revolutions was Western science whose roots lie as far back as the scholastic philosophers and the medieval universities. Its absence elsewhere is a sufficient reason why no other place developed its own indigenous industrial revolution.

R&D and innovation at the firm level: improving the S&T policy information base

Research Evaluation

Comparison Shopping and Clusters of Homogeneous Firms

by Curtis Eaton and R. Lipsey

Working Papers, 1976

THE THEORY OF CUSTOMS UNIONS: A GENERAL SURVEY11An earlier version of this paper was read before the Conference of the Association of University Teachers of Economics at Southampton, January 1959. I am indebted for comments and suggestions to G. C. Archibald, K. Klappholz and Professor L. Robbins

International Economics Policies and their Theoretical Foundations, 1982

In Elhanan Helpman (ed.) General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth. Cambridge; MIT Press, 1998

Unsuspected Perversities in the Theory of Location

by Curtis Eaton and R. Lipsey

The non-uniqueness of equilibrium in the Loschian location model

by Curtis Eaton and R. Lipsey

Industrial Policy: The Coevolution of Public and Private Sources of Finance for Important Emerging and Evolving Technologies

Industrial Policy: The Coevolution of Public and Private Sources of Finance for Important Emerging and Evolving Technologies , 2022

This publication is an abstract of the Cambridge Elements Book