Time path in innovation, imitation, and growth: the case of the motorcycle industry in postwar Japan

Eiji Yamamura (), Tetsushi Sonobe and Keijiro Otsuka ()

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2005, vol. 15, issue 2, 169-186

Abstract: This study attempts to explore how an industry evolves over time based on a case study of the motorcycle industry in Japan from 1948 to 1964. Using individual firm data, we estimate the determinants of technology improvement and firm growth separately for different development phases, after controlling for the probability of firm survival. We find that the industry’s rapid growth in the early phase can be explained by massive entry and the imitation of simple technologies, whereas sustained growth in later phases can be explained by innovations and subsequent imitations, as well as the exit of inefficient firms. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2005

Keywords: Evolution; Industrial development; Innovation; Imitation; Motorcycle industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00191-004-0239-3 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joevec:v:15:y:2005:i:2:p:169-186

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/191/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00191-004-0239-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Evolutionary Economics is currently edited by Uwe Cantner, Elias Dinopoulos, Horst Hanusch and Luigi Orsenigo

More articles in Journal of Evolutionary Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().