Nicola De Liso - Böcker

Technology has long been seen as a path to economic growth. However there is considerable debate about the exact nature of this relationship. Economics of Structural and Technological Change employs a wide range of theoretical and applied approaches to explore the concept of technological change.The book begins with a series of in-depth discussions of the economic analysis of technological change. The second section contains a discussion of theoretical models of technological change, focusing on issues such as time and innovation. The third section brings together a number of applied analyses of technological change and examines the effect of factors such as human resource constraints, patenting and science and technology indicators.

This book focuses on three main areas, each of which is central to economic theorising: firms’ organisation and behaviour, technological change and the process of globalisation. Each subject can be analysed by using different methods, which range from purely theoretical abstractions to case studies and from econometrics to simulations. What this collection provides is a broad view of the three topics by concentrating on different aspects of each of them, and utilising different methods of investigation. Internationalization, Technological Change and the Theory of the Firm looks in detail at various questions surrounding firms’ organisation, including why we can observe ordered paths of production, whether proximity between firms matters, and whether patenting is always worthwhile. In addition, several essays explore technology and innovation, including the persistence-cum-development of old technologies. Furthermore, this book focuses on those processes which concern small- and medium-sized firms, considering the usefulness of stage theory, the possibilities of production off-shoring and the skill composition of manufacturing firms. Overall, the book is characterised by original ideas, renewed applications of mathematical and statistical methods and the use of new databases. This valuable collection will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers focusing on innovation, theories of the firm and globalisation; and should also be useful to a professional readership as it presents up-to-date research with the aim of improving our understanding of the phenomena of technological change, firms’ strategies, and globalisation.