Innovation in Capitalist Economies

Innovation is critical to increasing global prosperity and also essential to surviving and overcoming the ongoing challenges of pandemics, wars, climate change, and systemic financial turmoil.

At the same time, major corporations seek to transform new knowledge and scientific progress into profitable innovations and to increase their influence over society. But if, as these firms claim, this tremendous innovativeness has a positive long-term effect on our lives, who ultimately pays the price for this development? This edited volume tackles issues related to innovation dynamics of modern capitalist economies, exploring the nature, the effects and the dynamics of innovative behaviour and the social impact of related policies. The first part of the book includes chapters on the selected drivers of innovative changes that driven by companies. The focus is made on organizational and financial determinants of innovations as well as on creative communities and social cooperation in networks that promote creative decisions. The second part is devoted to the innovations that play a role in the creation of added value and new financial solutions that allow companies to keep their vitality under the pressure of multiple events such a pandemic, climate policies, or growing geopolitical risk. Together, the contributors explore the various impacts of innovation on the way we are organizing capitalist economies in the 21st century.

This book will be of great interest to readers of the political economy of financial and economic development, innovation, banking and finance studies, economic policy, and economic crises.

Faruk Ülgen is a Professor of Economics, Head of International Relations and Bachelor Distance Learning Programs within the Department of Economics at the Université Grenoble Alpes, France. He also serves as Codirector of the Center of Research in Economics of Grenoble (CREG). His current research focuses on the evolution of financial markets and innovations and the evolution of financial regulation and supervision from an institutionalist-evolutionary perspective, drawing on collective action and the economics of the commons.

Lyubov Klapkiv, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the University Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin (Institute of Economics and Finance) and Visiting Professor at the University Grenoble Alpes (2022-2024). She received her PhD degree in Finance from the Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine. She is a graduate of the Line Kirkland Scholarship program 2015/2016. Her main research fields include the economics of insurance, sustainable finance, and financial innovations.