Abstract
Successive transformations of economic society from agricultural to industrial form and beyond to the service economy have consolidated a process of economic change with its own inner logic of tremendous power, a logic which harnessed continual technical and organizational innovation to the pursuit of profit. The intertwining of emergent knowledge and economic adaptation within the instituted frame of modern capitalism is at the core of economic self-transformation. This article treats this topic in three parts: the relation between new knowledge and economic transformation; some consequences of technical change; and the residual productivity debate.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Abramovitz, M. 1956. Resource and output trends in the United States since 1870. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 46: 5–23.
Bartlesmann, E., and M. Doms. 2000. Understanding productivity: Lessons from longitudinal data. Journal of Economic Literature 38: 569–594.
Bliss, C.J. 1975. Capital theory and the distribution of income. Amsterdam: North- Holland.
Denison, E.F. 1962. The sources of economic growth in the United States. New York: Committee for Economic Development.
Dosi, G. 2000. Innovation, organisation and economic dynamics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Eisenstein, E. 1979. The printing press as an agent of change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fujimoto, T. 1983. Inventions and technical change: A curiosum. Manchester School of Economics and Social Studies 51: 16–20.
Griliches, Z., ed. 1992. Output measurement in the service sectors. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Harcourt, G.C. 1972. Some Cambridge controversies in the theory of capital. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harrod, R. 1948. Towards a dynamic economics. London: Macmillan.
Jorgenson, D., and Z. Griliches. 1967. The explanation of productivity change. Review of Economic Studies 34: 249–283.
Kendrick, J. 1973. Postwar productivity trends in the United States, 1948–1969. New York: NBER.
Kurz, H., and N. Salvadori. 1995. Theory of production: A long-period analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kuznets, S. 1977. Two centuries of American economic growth: Reflections on US experience. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 67: 1–14.
Mokyr, J. 1990. The lever of riches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mokyr, J. 2002. The gifts of Athena. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nelson, R.R. 1989. Industry growth accounts and production functions when techniques are idiosyncratic. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 11: 323–341.
Nelson, R., and S. Winter. 1982. An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge, MA/London: Belknap Press.
Nelson, R.R., and S. Winter. 2002. Evolutionary theorizing in economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (2): 23–46.
Pasinetti, L.L. 1981. Structural change and economic growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robbins, L. 1932. An essay on the nature and significance of economic science. London: Macmillan.
Rymes, T. 1971. On concepts of capital and technical change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schumpeter, J. 1911. The theory of economic development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1934.
Simon, H. 1951. Effects of technical change in a linear model. In Activity analysis of production and allocation, ed. T.C. Koopmans. New York/London: Wiley/Chapman & Hall.
Solow, R. 1957. Technical change and the aggregate production function. Review of Economics and Statistics 39: 312–320.
Steedman, I. 1985. On the ‘impossibility’ of Hicks’ neutral technical progress. Economic Journal 95: 746–758.
Witt, U. 2003. The evolving economy: Essays on the evolutionary approach to economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Metcalfe, S. (2018). Technical Change. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1479
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1479
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences