On novelty and economics: Schumpeter’s paradox

Is novelty as such an intra or extra-economic phenomenon? Must we, necessarily, treat novelty uniquely as something that, from outside of an economic system, has an influence on it and on its evolution? Is it not a paradox to say that something that has no economic meaning is able to explain economic change? If so, is this paradox present in the Schumpeterian view on development? In this paper, we present what will be called the Schumpeter paradox: denoting nominally ‘novelty’ and ‘creator personality’ as its source, and ‘norm change’ as an analytical tool, is insufficient to separate different fields such as development and growth, if previously (and as a necessary condition) one does not develop a theoretical framework that has a natural place for the elements of ‘novelty’ and ‘creator personality’ that can support such a difference. Nobody should pretend that the study of economic development processes is straightforward. There are good grounds for believing that the innovation ‘black box’ will remain partially closed to economic analysis. However, this does not mean that nothing substantial may be said about novelty and economic development. How to tackle with this topic (and so, with the above-mentioned paradox) will require a change of perspective: a heuristic task should be undertaken. The ‘action plan approach’ here proposed would provide a coherent analytical framework to tackle with this kind of paradox.

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