ABSTRACT
Creative acts require creative economic accounting, because doing new things does not flow easily from neoclassical models of rational choice. If artistic and scientific pioneers do not defy market forces beforehand by renouncing the profit motive, they do so afterwards by keeping market-relevant knowledge to themselves. Successful innovation shows that the original set of markets was not complete, and creates uncertainty which may stop the expanded set from clearing. The missing information obstructing movement to economic equilibrium cannot easily be coaxed from the market processes its absence sets in train.
