Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines the long term economic growth that has raised the West''s material living standards to levels undreamed of by counterparts in any previous time or place. The authors argue that this growth has been driven by technological revolutions that have periodically transformed the West''s economic, social and political landscape over the last 10,000 years and allowed the West to become, until recently, the world''s only dominant technological force.Unique in the diversity of the analytical techniques used, the book begins with a discussion of the causes and consequences of economic growth and technological change. The authors argue that long term economic growth is largely driven by pervasive technologies now known as General Purpose (GPTs). They establish an alternative to the standard growth models that use an aggregate production function and then introduce the concept of GPTs, complete with a study of how these technologies have transformed the West since the Neolithic Ag
Table of ContentsForeword: The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and this Book ; Preface: Why Another Book on Growth? ; Acknowledgements ; GROWTH, TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND GENERAL PURPOSE TECHNOLOGIES ; 1. Technology as Revolution ; 2. Two Views of Economic Processes ; 3. A Structuralist Evolutionary Decomposition ; 4. Technology and Technological Change ; 5. A Survey of GPTs in Western History: Part I 10,000 BC to 1450 AD ; 6. A Survey Of GPTs in Western History: Part II 1450 to 2010 ; THE TRANSITION TO SUSTAINED GROWTH ; 7. The Emergence of Sustained Extensive Growth in the West ; 8. Why Not Elsewhere? ; 9. Population Dynamics: Extensive and Intensive Growth Related ; 10. The Emergence of Sustained Intensive Growth in the West ; MODELLING SUSTAINED GPT-DRIVEN GROWTH ; 11. GPTs and Related Concepts in the Literature ; 12. Scale Economies in Economic Growth ; 13. Appreciative Theories of GPTs ; 14. Formal Models Of GPT-Driven Sustained Growth: The Base Line Model ; 15. Formal Models of GPT-Driven Sustained Growth: Extensions and Applications ; POLICY ; 16. Technology Enhancement Policy: Theory and Evidence ; 17. Assessing Technology Enhancement Policies
