Economic Growth, Technical Progress and Labor Productivity: Knowledge Economics and New Forms of Technical Progress

The debate on deindustrialization assumes that domestic industry is a leading sector and produces positive externalities for the whole economy. This paper will partially refute this. Since the early 1990’s, most developed and emerging economies have been subjected to two paradoxes: the paradox of Solow, which calls into question the relationship between ICT investment and productivity gains, and the paradox of Gordon, showing that productivity gains in the ICT sector do not propagate to all other sectors. These paradoxes lead one to question the linear nature of the kaldorian cumulative mechanisms. Following both a theoretical and an empirical approach, such relationships are analyzed from the viewpoint of the various models of unbalanced growth built by Baumol. The author will highlight the limits of such models and provide elements for an alternative explanation. Ultimately, the real problem is to investigate the economic nature and the role that services and forms of intangible capital play in the new dynamic of growth.