Innovation and social welfare: A new research agenda

Abstract

Innovation research is motivated by the understanding that innovation contributes to address societal challenges and foster welfare. Extant research in this field has however adopted a rather narrow definition of social welfare, which focuses on economic performance and material wellbeing, and that mostly disregards distributional impacts of innovation. This paper outlines a new research agenda that will investigate the impacts of innovation on individuals' well-being and aggregate social welfare. The new research program has two major pillars. First, it adopts a broader notion of agents' well-being that comprises also non-economic factors and capabilities alongside income and material wealth. Second, it argues that welfare analyses of innovation must explicitly take into account equity and social justice in addition to efficiency and economic performance. This new research agenda opens up several novel questions for future innovation research and policy-making, pointing to the existence of trade-offs and dilemmas between efficiency and equity, and between short-and long-run impacts of innovation on social welfare.

A Subsidization Scheme for Maximizing Social Welfare in Mobile Communications Markets

“…In that sense, welfare theories are commonly used in the discipline of public economics, which focuses on how government intervention might improve social welfare [14]. Thus, by defining key interactions between the demand side and the supply side, social welfare can be maximized by a social planner supported by subsidy or fiscal incentive strategies [15].…”

“…To the best of the authors' knowledge, no other work in the literature proposes a system model or framework similar to the one adopted in this paper. Nevertheless, works concerning social welfare maximization in diverse settings or contexts, distinct from this paper, are documented in the following articles: [15,32,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40].…”

Impact of Technology, Military, and Socio-Economic Welfare on Conflict in Indonesia and Japan

“…It argues for a broader notion of well-being that includes non-economic factors and capabilities alongside income and material wealth. Additionally, welfare analyses of innovation should consider equity and social justice alongside efficiency and economic performance (Castellacci, 2022). Technology of AI can positively impact sustainable development goals, such as increasing productivity, promoting equality and inclusion, and addressing environmental challenges.…”