Collaborative Innovation Blocs and Antifragility

We present the theory of the collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), an evolving system of innovation within which activity takes place over time. We show how the application of the CIB perspective can help make institutional and evolutionary economics more concrete, relevant, and persuasive, especially regarding policy prescriptions. Such policy actions should strive to improve the antifragility of CIBs and the economic system as a whole, thus enabling individual CIBs and the broader economic system to thrive when faced with adversity. With this in mind, we develop heuristics to evaluate CIB antifragility before using Sweden’s economic and institutional evolution since the 1970s as a backdrop for identifying a set of institutional areas where reform can be undertaken to move in this direction.