Três ensaios sobre a relação entre finança, investimento e inovação

Abstract

Three essays compound this thesis, each one analyzing some theoretical aspect of the relation between finance, investment, and innovation. The first essay proposes a reading on classical contributions from Arrow and Nelson, which in a way inaugurates the contemporary debate on the specifics in the process of generating invention and innovation. Through this reading, it is suggested that private firms conducing their own research answer to the logic of buying an insurance from technological rivals competition; it is also suggested that, to the extent that technology is not a pure public good, the concept of a firms technological base developed by Nelson constitutes, until nowadays, a fresh starting point to build a possibly fruitful dialogue between finance theory and the theory of innovation. The second essay focuses more precisely on the problems related to obtaining finance for innovation; some elements are then proposed to frame an articulation between Schumpeter, Hilferding and Minsky. A case is made for arguing that such an articulation allows for advance in this respect. The third essay also proposes a theoretical articulation, now between the economic thought of Celso Furtado, his disciple Maria da Conceição Tavares, and neo-Schumpeterian Chris Freeman. Selected writings from theses authors are read and confronted, in order to reassemble one of Furtados favorite metaphor to depict underdevelopment: a Janus head where technological dependency is one face and financial dependency the other one.