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Technological change: A microeconomic approach to the creation of knowledge

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  • Grebel, Thomas

Abstract

Technological change does not evolve in a purely normative economic way. Economic selection has a guiding impact on technology evolution, but the generic element of novelty does not necessarily follow economic utility. In general, market selection is predominant in economic thinking and it is also implicit in the literature on technological change. Using a microeconomic approach to the creation of knowledge, this paper shows that the generic (Schumpeterian) element of the emergence of novelty - economic selection being absent - may create structures, paradigms and trajectories, which we usually look at from a market selection perspective. This paper does not try to make predictions on trajectories, but it qualifies a standard evolutionary perspective.

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  • Grebel, Thomas, 2009. "Technological change: A microeconomic approach to the creation of knowledge," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 301-312, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:20:y:2009:i:4:p:301-312
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Grebel, 2011. "Innovation and Health," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14375.
    2. Kurt Dopfer, 2011. "Mesoeconomics: A Unified Approach to Systems Complexity and Evolution," Chapters, in: Cristiano Antonelli (ed.), Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Grebel, Thomas, 2013. "On the tradeoff between similarity and diversity in the creation of novelty in basic science," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 66-78.
    4. Caroline Gerschlager, 2012. "Agents of change," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 413-441, July.
    5. Kurt Dopfer, 2012. "The origins of meso economics," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 133-160, January.
    6. Kurt Dopfer, 2011. "Economics in a Cultural Key: Complexity and Evolution Revisited," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.

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