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On 22 June 2010 the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society awarded William Lazonick the 2010 Schumpeter Prize for his book, Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2009). Also awarded the 2010 Schumpeter Prize was Bart Nooteboom of Tilberg University for his book, A Cognitive Theory of the Firm (Elgar, 2009). The two recipients share the cash reward of €10,000.
The Prize is awarded every two years in recognition of a recent scholarly contribution related to the work of Joseph Schumpeter, a leading economist of the first half of the 20th century whose name has become synonymous with the study of innovation and economic development. This year the theme of the Prize competition was "Innovation, Organization, Sustainability and Crises".
Lazonick's book analyzes the transformation of the mode of business organization that characterizes US high-tech industry. He shows how a business model that was an engine of innovation in the 1980s and 1990s has resulted in an inequitable income distribution and unstable employment. Lazonick argues that, with increasing inequity and recurring instability in the 2000s, the engine of innovation has stalled. At the root of the problem is the corporate focus on stock-price performance, manifested in large-scale stock buybacks and the explosion of executive pay. This book is essential for understanding how the “financialization” of US industrial corporations has weakened the US economy and contributed to the current crisis. Further information on Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy?
William Lazonick is Professor in the Department of Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Director of the UMass Lowell Center for Industrial Competitiveness. He is also affiliated with the CNRS Groupe de Recherche en Économie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA), Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV, where he is engaged in the research project on finance, innovation, and growth (FINNOV: http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/), funded by the European Commission. Lazonick is also directing a complementary project on financial institutions for innovation and development, funded by the Ford Foundation, with a focus on the United States, Japan, and China.
