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I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O S E P H A. S C H U M P E T E R S O C I E T Y
Minutes of the meeting of the general assembly The meeting of the General Assembly was called to order at 1:45 p.m. on
Wednesday, June 5, 1996 at the conference centre in Falun/Sweden by the Society's president, Gunnar Eliasson. 1. Approval of the Minutes of the General Assembly pertaining to Miinster 1994 The minutes of August 20, 1994 were unanimously approved.
2. Administrative Reports of the President and the Secretary General (a) Report of the President The president, Gunnar Eliasson reported that the Stockholm conference has the largest number of participants compared to the previous Schumpeter Society meetings; therefore many parallel sessions had to be organized.
b) Administrative Report of the Treasurer/Secretary General The Secretary General, Horst Hanusch reported that by May 31 the membership of the Society totals to 425 members from 36 countries. 3. Report of the Treasurer/Secretary General The balances for 1994 and 1995 were distributed to the General Assembly. The Secretary General, Horst, Hanusch, reported on the developments. In the future, it is planned to keep net assets of about 150.000 DM. Robert Lanzillotti reported on the work of the auditing committee. He suggested to the General Assembly to accept the financial reports and balances for 1994 and 1995. This suggestion was unanimously accepted.
4. Publications As to the status quo of publications, Mark Perlman reported that the MOnster volume will be available in August 1996, a dummy copy can be inspected during the current conference. Concerning the contract with The University of Michigan Press, the conditions stated there are guaranteed for the next two years. With respect to the Journal of Evolutionary Economies (JEE), Mark Perlman announced that he will resign as an active co-editor. He announced Steven Klepper to succeed him; Uwe Cantner to become an associate editor, and Charles McCann an editorial assistant. Christopher Green proposed that Charles McCann should also become an associate editor for the conference proceedings of the Society. There was no discussion on this point. Christopher Green reported that he plans to have the Stockholm proceedings out in spring of 1998. The volume will include approximately 20 papers. Other excellent papers from the Stockholm meeting can be published either in a special issue, or individually, in the JEE.
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The president, Gunnar Eliasson thanked Mark Perlman for his tremendous engagement in the JEE and asked him to serve as Senior Editor furtheron.
5. Schumpeter Prize 1998 The topic of the next competition reads: Capitalism and Democracy in the
21st Century. As to the prize committee chairman it was suggested to have David At:DRETSCH(D); the committee should include the lollowing names: Wesley M. COHEN (USA), Brian LOASBY(UK), Pavel PELIKAN(S), Ulrich WITT(D). These suggestions were accepted unanimously.
6. Elections The following candidates were unanimously elected: President-Elect: J. Stan METCALFE(UK) Vice-Presidents: (l) Giovanni DOSl (I), (2) Ken-ichi ]MA1(JP)
Board of Management: New members: Wesley M. COHEN(USA) to replace Paul Hohenberg (USA); Hariolf GRUeP (D) to replace Heinrich Oppenl~.nder (D); Yasunori BABA(JP) to replace Akira Goto (JP); G.M. Peter SWANN(UK) to replace Stanley Metcalfe (UK).
Re-elected: Gdrard BALLOT(F), Stephan BOHM (A), Anne CARTER(USA), Jan FAGERBERG (N), John FOSTER (AUS), Yannis KATSOULACOS(GR), Alfred KI.EINKNECH7 (NL), Witold KWASNICKI(P), Franco MALERBA(I), Ehud ZUSCOVITCH(IL/F).
Auditing Committee: Bo CARLSSON(USA) Bernd MEYER (D) re-elected. Deputy Treasurer: Robert F. LANZILLOTT!(USA).
7. Conference 1998 As to the 1998 conference, it will be held in Vienna/Austria in June on a weekend. It was unanimously agreed that the topic of the conference should be the same as the one of the Schumpeter Prize: Capitalism and Democracy in the 21st Century.
8. Other topics Concerning "other topics" several issues were raised which all aim at improving the world-wide representation of the ISS. Such measures as intermediate conferences; Internet-Newsletters; special sessions at other congresses were suggested. Although more activities should be organized locally or individually, the general attitude was that the Executive Committee or Board of Management could ask selected members to start such activities. The meeting was adjourned at 2.30 p.m. Gunnar Eliasson (President)
Horst Hanusch (Secretary General)
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I N T E R N A T I O N A L JOSEPH A. S C H U M P E T E R S O C I E T Y
Schumpeter Prize Competition 1996
This year's Schumpeter Prize competition was entitled Learning, Entrepreneurship and the Dynamics of the Firm. There were well over 100 inquiries and requests for the rules of the competition received from all around the world. In the end, 37 manuscripts were submitted, several of book length. The evaluation committee consisted of Masahiko Aoki (Stanford University), David Audretsch (Science Center Berlin), Richard Day (University of Southern California), Horst Hanusch (University of Augsburg), Peter Swann (University of Manchester), and was chaired by Bo Carlsson (Case Western Reserve University). The committee evaluated the manuscripts on the basis of overall quality as well as fit under the announced topic. The prize was awarded to Maureen McKelvey of Link~ping University for the manuscript Evolutionary Innovations: The Business of Biotechnology, a book published in early summer 1996 by Oxford University Press. This study represents a highly original and careful application of evolutionary ideas to biotechnology, tracing the history of the technology and the roles played by various individual actors, especially the interaction of an American and a Swedish firm, both early leaders in the field. It is an impressive piece of empirical work which provides a good balance between theory, empirical analysis, and policy relevance. It also spans the potential gap between micro and macro and brings into the analysis a thorough understanding of the technology underlying the dynamics of evolving industry and firm structure.
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I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O S E P H A. S C H U M P E T E R S O C I E T Y
Report on the 6th Schumpeter Conference in Stockholm, June 2-5, 1996 From June 2-5, 1996 the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, the Academy of Engineering Sciences in Stockholm, and the City University of Stockholm hosted the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society's 6th conference, the topic being "Competence, Entry, and Economic Growth - The Firm, the Innovator, the Entrepreneur and Market Competition". The President of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society (ISS) and conference organizer, Prof. Gunnar Eliasson of the Royal Institute of Technology, succeeded in gathering together a formidable group of economists from all over the world. The proposed ambition of the conference was to clarify the microeconomic foundations of economic growth, a task which required a well-designed and innovative conference architecture. Eliasson accepted that challenge and handled it creatively. The congress opened with a presentation by Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North on institutions, organizations, and market competition. He demonstrated the way in which neoclassical theorizing could be modified by elements of the new institutional economics in a way that could make this theory useful for the study of the performance of economies through time. On the basis of this very illuminating lecture, four General Sessions were organized, each commencing with invited presentations on selected subjects. Later (parallel) sessions involved more intense discussions of topics, including round table discussions. The first General Session, "The Firm, the Innovator, and the Entrepreneur", included papers by Sidney Winter (on "The Nature of the Firm"), Richard Day (on "The Origin of Firm Performance"), Bo Carlsson (on "Entrepreneurship and Firm Dynamics"), and Clas Wilborg (on "The Firm and Financial Markets"). These papers established the basic characteristics of the innovation process in a microeconomic perspective. In the parallel sessions, these topics were expanded upon both theoretically and empirically. Most interesting were papers covering topics in evolutionary game theory, competence and knowledge-enhancing firm strategies, and financing firm R&D. The center of interest of the second General Session was the interaction of microeconomic units and the relations to economic growth. David Audretsch began with a discussion of "The Finn in the Market". Frank Stafford then presented a paper on "Technology Regimes and the Distribution of Real Wages"; Giovanni Dosi spoke of "Learning in Evolutionary Environments"; and finally Pavel Pelikan argued the case for "Government, Markets and Economic Growth".
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Based on these, mostly broad-based, overviews, specific topics were addressed in the parallel sessions, including such topics as entry and competition, technological learning, technology and economic growth, technological spillovers, evolutionary microeconomics, institutional aspects, and governmental intervention. The third conference section was opened by a General Session on "The Microeconomic Foundations of Economic Growth - The Need for New Theory?" by Robert Clower. He also chaired a round-table and floor discussion on this topic, consisting of G6rard Ballot, Richard Day, Gunnar Eliasson and Brian Loasby. The intense and sometimes quite controversial discussion demonstrated that it is anything but an easy task to bridge the gap between the somewhat antagonistic theoretical camps of neoclassical and evolutionary thinking. A final General Session dealt with the "History of Economic Analysis", with a special focus on the Swedish Lineage and the Smith-Wicksell-Schumpeter Connection. Richard Swedberg opened the session with his lecture, "Schumpeter in Sweden". A panel discussion was then initiated, including Erik Dahm6n, Rolf Henriksson, Mark Perlman, Yuichi Shionoya and Wolfgang Stolper. The innovative part of the conference was the organization of sessions on an excursion train to Falun. During this three hour trip, papers on such topics as "Economic Analysis and Doctrines" and "Technical Change, Reorganisation and Growth" were presented and discussed. Additionally, representatives from Ericsson and ABB underlined the importance of the conference topic for real-life problems. In addition to the above-mentioned sessions, a number of special sessions, not necessarily related closely to the conference topic, were organized. This turned out to be unavoidable because a large number of top-level papers had been submitted. In sum, about 120 papers or longer discussion statements on round-tables were presented - a number exceeding those from earlier Schumpeter Congresses. The scientific presentations were accompanied by a social program that began with a reception by the Mayor of Stockholm in the Den Gyllene Salen of the City Hall on Sunday, June 2. During the second evening, conference participants were hosts of the magazine "Wirtschaftswoche", which organized the Schumpeter-Prize Dinner (on the Schumpeter Prize, see the separate report by Bo Carlsson). This event took place in the famous Vasa-Museum. The dinner on June 4 was hosted by the Royal Institute of Technology. At this event, Professor Erik DahmEn, spoke of the great Johann Akerman, whose 100-year birthday is celebrated in 1996. The trip to Falun was accompanied by a welcome by the world's oldest stock company, Stora. After a guided tour through the old mine area, lunch was served in Stora's guest house. Uwe Cantner / Andreas Pyka University of Augsburg
