The source of wealth^*

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Notes

* This is a revised version of a plenary talk presented to the 2015 Conference of the NZ Association of Economists, in Wellington, June 2015. Thanks to Christine Greenhalgh, T'Mir Julius and an anonymous referee for comments.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3qd-A1acGU.

2. Sources: World Bank National Accounts data and OECD National Accounts data files. GNI per capita is gross national income divided by mid-year population. Barro–Lee: average years of total schooling, age 15+, total (Robert J. Barro and Jong-Wha Lee: http://www.barrolee.com/). Federal Reserve Economic Data. Capital Stock at Constant National Prices for Germany, Korea, Millions of 2005 U.S. Dollars, Annual (https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2).

3. Triangulation means using two or more sources of information or knowledge on the same subject to check their reliability. The concept derives from navigational and land surveying methods that determine a single point in space from two other distinct points. We can be more confident with a result if different methods lead to the same result.

4. Baba and Walsh (2010) describe how Merck, the first body to commercialise statins (a Japanese discovery), used its strategic position at the centre of an open network to collate information about substitute drugs, sophisticated know-how, and regulations that allowed them to make correct but new-to-the-world intuitive decisions.

5. Shearmur and Doloreux (2013) argue that knowledge-based business services – specialist IT, knowledge systems, marketing and managerial services – are the antidote to the emergence of more open and flexible production wrought through global production chains.

6. Miguélez and Moreno (2015) find that the networks and the mobility of inventors within these networks are associated with more innovative firms.

7. See Garud, Tuertscher and Van de Ven (2013), Tripsas and Gavetti (2000) and Tripsas (2009).