Much of the existing economic literature on innovation has taken a particularly functional viewpoint as to what innovation might be. This book explores 'soft innovation', found in the creative industries such as publishing, film-making, advertising, and architecture, which has been, hitherto, ignored in innovation studies.

• 1: Introduction


• Part I: The Nature and Extent of Soft Innovation


• 2: Defining Soft Innovation


• 3: Aggregate Measures of Soft Innovation


• 4: Soft Innovation in the Creative Industries: Books, Recorded Music, and Video Games


• 5: Soft Innovations Outside the Creative Industries: The Food, Pharmaceuticals, and Financial Industries


• Part II: The Economic Analysis of Soft Innovation


• 6: The Economic Analysis of TPP Innovation as a Foundation for the Analysis of Soft Innovation


• 7: The Supply of Soft Product Innovations


• 8: The Diffusion of Soft Innovations


• 9: Soft Innovation and Uncertainty: Variant Proliferation, Insurance Markets, and Finance


• 10: Soft Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, Competition, and Welfare


• Part III: Impacts and Implications


• 11: The Impact of Soft Innovations on Firm Performance


• 12: Soft Innovation and Government Policy


• 13: Conclusions and Future Prospects

Professor Paul Stoneman is Research Professor in the Marketing and Strategic Management Group and Head of the Technological Innovations Research Unit in Warwick Business School. He has held visiting positions at Stanford and Nuffield College, Oxford. He has published widely on the Economics of Innovation especially as regards the diffusion of new technology and technology policy. He is author of one of the earliest studies of computerization in the UK as well as texts on technological change and technology policy, with a recent volume on technological diffusion. Past papers have appeared inter alia in the Rand Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, and The Journal of Industrial Economics.