The Crisis of the Neoclassical Framework and the Schumpeterian Echo in the Current Paradigm of the Economic Analysis of Technological Change

Despite a relative early attention, it was already well into the twentieth century when Schumpeter tried to reintroduce the question of technological change in economic analysis, without much success then, since this field would be dominated for decades by the vision of the Neoclassical synthesis of Kaldor and Solow. The response to the Neoclassical growth model at the end of the twentieth century came from its treatment of two increasingly relevant variables—human capital and technology—and its impossibility to explain the patterns of convergence between countries. Among the main currents that focus on the inclusion of technology as a variable, the New Growth Theory approach stands out, with the combination of knowledge creation and technology as a driver of development and the systemic approach to innovation initiated by Freeman, within the framework of Industrial Economics and an evolutionary perspective that considers these elements endogenous to the economic system. This chapter analyses the echo of Schumpeterian thought in the new paradigm of technological change, which can be interpreted as a return to the origins of this branch of economic analysis.