Technical Progress: Technological Change, the Learning Curve, and Economic Growth

Abstract

Technical progress is the single most important factor shaping the economy in which we live. The term ‘technical progress’ encompasses all those forces which raise simultaneously the productivity of all factors of production combined (but is distinguished from economies of scale by not necessarily requiring an increase in the scale of production to achieve this improvement in total factor productivity). Technical progress has two aspects which may in the real world be difficult to distinguish but which analytic clarity requires us to consider separately.