Radical technologies, recombinant novelty and productivity growth: a cliometric approach

Using inventions with a high degree of recombinant novelty as proxy for radical technologies, this work provides a long-run quantitative analysis of the relationship between radical technologies and productivity growth. The empirical analysis is based on a cliometric approach and relies on Granger’s causality to test the sign and direction of causality between the flow of radical technologies and productivity levels, in the USA between 1920 and 2000. At the aggregate level, results show that radical technologies cause a temporary acceleration of productivity growth and explain a considerable part of productivity variations. At technology-field level, the analysis indicates that productivity growth is driven by a few technological fields, mainly concentrated in science based sectors and in the sectors of specialized suppliers of capital equipment. Finally, with respect to the controversial issue of the endogeneity of radical technologies, at the aggregate level we find no causal relationship running from productivity to radical technologies, suggesting that these are exogenous. However, at technology-field level, we find a few endogenous technologies. Most of these are “demand-driven” as their flow increases when productivity grows, but they have no impact on productivity. Only in one technological field, the flow of radical technologies increases when productivity decreases and, at the same time, has a positive impact on productivity. This latter case may explain why technological revolutions and the whole process of long-run economic development are partly endogenous.