Love of Novelty: A Source of Innovation-Based Growth... or Underdevelopment Traps?

Yuichi Furukawa, Tat-kei Lai and Kenji Sato

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This study develops a new innovation-based growth model to explore the role of people's love of novelty in innovation and innovation-based growth. The model considers (a) an infinitely lived representative consumer who has the standard love-of-variety preferences for differentiated products and extra love-of-novelty preferences for new products and (b) technological progress driven by two costly and time-consuming innovation activities, new product development and existing product development. We demonstrate that if the consumer's love-of-novelty preference is moderate, new and existing product development alternately occur on an equilibrium path, whereby the economy achieves innovation and long-run growth, through cycles. However, if the love of novelty is too strong or too weak, the economy is caught in an underdevelopment trap with less innovation and no long-run growth. Our results suggest that the love of novelty is a source of innovation-based growth, but can become a cause of underdevelopment traps if too strong.

Keywords: Love/fear of novelty; innovation; innovation-based economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 O40 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/92915/1/MPRA_paper_92915.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/95700/1/MPRA_paper_95700.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Love of Novelty: A Source of Innovation-Based Growth... or Underdevelopment Traps? (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:92915

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