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Capital in the new economy: A Schumpeterian perspective

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Entrepreneurships, the New Economy and Public Policy

Abstract

The “dotcom boom” and subsequent collapse raises issues as to the nature of capital and the relationship between capital and investment. Capital in conventional finance, based on the Fisher-Hirshleifer analysis, is defined as postponed consumption and investment is defined as a trade-off between consumption now and in the future. This paper argues that a more satisfactory explanation of the relationship between investment and capital was developed by the Austrian economist Böhm-Bawerk, who identified capital goods as separate from consumption goods, and where the passage of time is fundamental to the accumulation of capital. Such a process assumes risk rather than uncertainty, and does not capture the essence of Schumpeterian investment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, 2, Ireland

    Jim Stewart

Authors
  1. Jim Stewart
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Chair for Microeconomics, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Str. 3, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Uwe Cantner

  2. Department of Economics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Elias Dinopoulos

  3. Graduate School of Business, University of Florida, 201 Bryan Hall, Gainesville, FL, 32611-7150, USA

    Robert F. Lanzillotti

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Stewart, J. (2005). Capital in the new economy: A Schumpeterian perspective. In: Cantner, U., Dinopoulos, E., Lanzillotti, R.F. (eds) Entrepreneurships, the New Economy and Public Policy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-26994-0_10

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