AN OLDER answer was that the big corporations were often at the front lines. Monopolies had a special power to do this. Economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote in 1942 that monopolies were behind such technological growth.

Heavy industries spent more on research than did industries with more competition.

Bell Telephone Labs, supported by the monopoly held then by AT&T, stood out. For four decades, Bell's research generated or refined a string of great inventions. There were transistors, semiconductors, microwaves, satellites, fiber optics, programming languages.

One could find path-breaking innovations arising as well from IBM, General Electric, du Pont, General Motors.

Schumpeter put it this way:

"The modern standard of life of the masses evolved during the period of relatively unfettered 'big business' . . . a shocking suspicion dawns upon us that big business may have had more to do with creating that standard of living than keeping it down."

Why would this be so?

One factor is cost. It takes much funds to support basic laboratory research. You wouldn't expect the sari-sari store at the corner to have the money to do R&D on the shelf life of pork and beans.

Note also that an invention benefits not only the firm that created it but also the nation as a whole. After a patent expires, other manufacturers copy the innovation. It becomes mainstream and the entire society gains.

Studies have shown that the benefit to the nation from an invention is about three times the reward pocketed by the innovating firm.

But if you have large market share, you would get greater gains from technical change. If Toyota controls say, 30 percent of all car sales, then research on more efficient engines would clearly benefit the company.

The smaller the market share, the worse the INAPPROPRIABILITY, the inability of the inventor to get all the fruits from his invention.

Patents exist in order to let the inventing firm appropriate or enjoy the gains from the invention before everyone else copies it. To its credit, Mercedes Benz did not secure patents for its inventions concerning car safety. The firm shared them with the

entire industry.

Today the pattern seems to be reversed. The small start-ups in Silicon Valley are the firms leading or at least keeping pace in the hi-tech race. Armed with the personal computer, an army of Davids is spewing out a stream of new programs and gadgets.