Knowledge and competitive advantage: the coevolution of firms, technology and national institutions

摘要

The historicist approach in evolutionary economics is as established and fertile as the formalist strand of quantitative analysis and modelling. Johann Murmann's Knowledge and Competitive Advantage clearly belongs to the former genre; it is a book of economic history as much as a thesis on evolutionary economics. In its first role it provides an in-depth narrative of the evolution of the synthetic dye industry that is easily accessible to a broad audience. In its second role it gives an insight into the process of industrial development and the sources of competitive advantage in the Veblenian tradition of evolutionary institutionalism.