ABSTRACT
Harald Hagemann has never been ‘easy to classify’: his contributions to the History of Economic Thought go deep and address a large variety of fundamental economic issues. His ongoing interest in economic growth is nevertheless obvious, never absent from his concern, even when he focuses on business cycles or innovation theories. In view of his deep inclination for Schumpeter’s approach to these issues, this essay examines how the Soft Budget Constraint (SBC) approach can contribute to our understanding of the nexus between innovation and financial institutions, and how competition may interfere with such relationships, as well as the possible connections with neo-Schumpeterian analysis.
