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A New View of General Purpose Technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Uwe Cantner

    () (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena)

  • Simone Vannuccini

    (Graduate College "The Economics of Innovative Change", University of Jena)

Abstract

The economic literature started to recognize the heterogeneity characterizing the nature of different technologies, introducing the concept of General Purpose Technologies. In this paper, we offer a "new view of General Purpose Technologies", building on the historical as well as on the recent literature, enquiring more in deep the definitional problems related to the GPTs and the conditions for their emergence, together with the characteristic for their prevalence and pervasiveness. A Schumpeterian and evolutionary view pointing at the micro and meso level of analysis - that of the dynamics of firms and industries -, is in our view the privileged perspective economists need to adopt in order to revitalize the theoretical and empirical study of GPTs. The similarities with the emergence of dominant designs and the relations with dynamics of increasing returns and path dependency in the choice between alternative technologies offer us a set of tools well suited to study the establishment of GPTs as a process unfolding in time, more than as a single homogeneous shock.

Suggested Citation

  • Uwe Cantner & Simone Vannuccini, 2012. "A New View of General Purpose Technologies," Jena Economic Research Papers 2012-054, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2012-054
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
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    Cited by:

    1. RAITERI Emilio, 2015. "A time to nourish? Evaluating the impact of innovative public procurement on technological generality through patent data," Cahiers du GREThA 2015-05, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée(GREThA).
    2. Taalbi, Josef, 2017. "Origins and Pathways of Innovation in the Third Industrial Revolution: Sweden, 1950-2013," Lund Papers in Economic History 159, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    3. repec:eee:tefoso:v:129:y:2018:i:c:p:88-104 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Uwe Cantner & Simone Vannuccini, 2017. "Innovation and lock-in," Chapters,in: The Elgar Companion to Innovation and Knowledge Creation, chapter 11, pages 165-181 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. repec:spr:joevec:v:28:y:2018:i:5:d:10.1007_s00191-017-0546-0 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Uwe Cantner & Holger Graf & Ekaterina Prytkova & Simone Vannuccini, 2018. "The Compositional Nature of Productivity and Innovation Slowdown," Jena Economic Research Papers 2018-006, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    7. repec:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:3:p:839-:d:136629 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Clifford Bekar & Kenneth Carlaw & Richard Lipsey, 2018. "General purpose technologies in theory, application and controversy: a review," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 1005-1033, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    General Purpose Technologies; Long Waves; Business Cycles; Dominant design; Pervasiveness of technologies; Neo-Schumpeterian economics.;

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

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