Technological Change
Last update: 01 Dec 2002 14:07First version:
Origins of innovations. Spread of innovations. Conditions for their success. Conditions leading to technological decline. Conditions leading to technological stagnation. Fixing the directions of technological progress. Origins of systematic research and development. Economics of R&D. Psychology of engineering design and technological creativity. Relations to other sorts of design. QWERTY and path-dependence.
- Recommended (obviously inadequate):
- Steven Berlin Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation [Review: Go to the Reef, Thou Dullard, and Consider Its Ways]
- Nathan Rosenberg, "The Direction of Technological Change: Inducement Mechanisms and Focusing Devices", Economic Development and Cultural Change 18 (1969): 1--24 [JSTOR; commentary from "A Fine Theorem"]
- To Read:
- Philippe Aghion, Nick Bloom, Richard Blundell, Rachel Griffith and Peter Howitt, "Competition and Innovation: An Inverted-U Relationship", The Quarterly Journal of Economics 120 (2005): 701--728
- W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves
- James Bessen, Learning by Doing: The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth
- Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Towards a Theory of Sociotechnical Change
- Branscomb and Auerswald, Taking Technical Risks: How Innovators, Executives, and Investors Manage High-Tech Risks
- Louis Bucciarelli, Designing Engineers
- W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Eletric, 1870--1900
- Subrata Dasgupta, Technology and Creativity
- Dym, Engineering Design
- Jon Elster, Explaining Technical Change
- An Engineer in the Garden of Eden
- Hill, The Science of Engineering Design
- Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths [Review by Fred Block]
- David R. Meyer, Networked Machinists: High-Technology Industries in Antebellum America
- Joel Mokyr
- The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (1990)
- The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (2002)
- A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (2017)
- Petroski
- Evolution of Useful Things
- Invention by Design
- Pool, Beyond Engineering
- Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics
- Peter Rowe, Design Thinking
- Ross Thomson, Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age: Technological Innovation in the United States, 1790--1865
- Namatié Traoré, "Networks and Rapid Technological Change: Novel Evidence from the Canadian Biotech Industry", Industry and Innovation 13 (2006): 41--68
- Thomas Woodson, Introduction to Engineering Design
