The contribution of ‘new boy’ phenomena to increasing innovation and improvement in new technology

The importance of increasing innovation and improvement in support of national priorities and goals is commonly stated, and such importance is, in the main, agreed upon. Conventional wisdom relies heavily upon competition and direct incentives to be the driving force for innovation and improvement. The data presented herein argues in favor of increasing competition by encouraging new producers, socalled ‘new Boys,’ to enter a specific technological application area. This suggests that a ‘new boy’ policy judiciously applied would increase the rate of change of improvement and of innovation and probably would reduce the costs per unit improvement. We present analyses drawn from a single industry over a period of approximately twenty‐five years. The study analyzes 237 projects drawn from ten corporations and points to the effects of the ‘new boy’ phenomena at all sections of the technology curve.