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Technology and Industrial Progress
The Foundations of Economic Growth
9781858981741 Edward Elgar Publishing
In Technology and Industrial Progress, Nick von Tunzelmann examines theoretical views on the nature and contribution of technology, and the empirical evidence from the major industrializing countries from the eighteenth Century to the present day. The experiences of countries regarded in their time as the leaders of industrialization – Britain in the eighteenthth century, the United States in the nineteenth century and Japan in the twentieth century – are critically compared by the author. The following chapters study the transfer of each of these patterns of technology and growth to later industrializers, such as continental Europe, the Soviet Union, and today’s newly industrializing countries. Adopting approaches drawn from evolutionary economics, Dr von Tunzelmann links micro-level phenomena relating to individual firms and technologies to macro-level outcomes as reflected in economic growth and development.
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Critical Acclaim
Contents
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What has dictated the rate and direction of technological change? How central has it been to industrial progress? How has it related to other determinants of economic growth and development?
In Technology and Industrial Progress, Nick von Tunzelmann examines theoretical views on the nature and contribution of technology, and the empirical evidence from the major industrializing countries from the eighteenth century to the present day. The experiences of countries regarded in their time as the leaders of industrialization – Britain in the eighteenth century, the United States in the nineteenth century and Japan in the twentieth century – are critically compared by the author. The following chapters study the transfer of each of these patterns of technology and growth to later industrializers, such as continental Europe, the Soviet Union, and today’s newly industrializing countries. Adopting approaches drawn from evolutionary economics, Dr von Tunzelmann links micro-level phenomena relating to individual firms and technologies to macro-level outcomes as reflected in economic growth and development.
This long-awaited book is exceptional both in the range of countries surveyed and the breadth of topics analysed, encompassing changes in production processes, products and marketing, management and finance.
In Technology and Industrial Progress, Nick von Tunzelmann examines theoretical views on the nature and contribution of technology, and the empirical evidence from the major industrializing countries from the eighteenth century to the present day. The experiences of countries regarded in their time as the leaders of industrialization – Britain in the eighteenth century, the United States in the nineteenth century and Japan in the twentieth century – are critically compared by the author. The following chapters study the transfer of each of these patterns of technology and growth to later industrializers, such as continental Europe, the Soviet Union, and today’s newly industrializing countries. Adopting approaches drawn from evolutionary economics, Dr von Tunzelmann links micro-level phenomena relating to individual firms and technologies to macro-level outcomes as reflected in economic growth and development.
This long-awaited book is exceptional both in the range of countries surveyed and the breadth of topics analysed, encompassing changes in production processes, products and marketing, management and finance.
Critical Acclaim
‘Nick von Tunzelmann has written an ambitious and challenging book, spanning economics, economic history, the history of ideas and technology per se. It should be recommended reading for economic historians, economists and anyone interested in the dynamics of technical change.’
– Peter Holmes, University of Sussex, UK
‘The book’s organization allows it to be read as a whole or treated as a resource to guide students studying a particular topic. Undergraduate, graduate, professional .’
– M. Perelman, Choice
‘Von Tunzelmann has written a great book, impressive in both scope and depth. Often the reader is overwhelmed by the wealth of detail, at times by the profoundness of insight.’
– Paul Diederen, The Economic Journal
‘This is an impressive book, and an unusual one too. This is not only because of its length (more than five hundred pages), nor the large number of books and articles cited in the text (between seven and eight hundred). What really makes this book exceptional is its broad coverage and the way it is written.’
– J. Fagerberg, Journal of Evolutionary Economics
‘. . . Technology and Industrial Progress deserves to be widely read and should be of great interest to many business historians.’
– N.F.R. Crafts, Business History
‘These essays are a useful guide to the strengths and limitations of radical debate in the 1990s.’
– Joseph Melling, Business History
‘This book represents economic history at its best–theoretically informed but sceptical, unburdened by jargon or abstruse mathematics, alive to historical contingency, and comparative on a grand scale. Lucidly written, well referenced, and cogently organized into subsectioned chapters, its author’s premises made explicit and terms clearly defined, it merits inclusion as a standard text on all advanced courses in comparative industrialization.’
– Christine MacLeod, Journal of Economic History
‘The book makes good use of the most recent and classical theories of innovation to provide a framework to understand the industrial and technological change which has been going on since the eighteenth century.’
– Cristiano Antonelli, The Manchester School
– Peter Holmes, University of Sussex, UK
‘The book’s organization allows it to be read as a whole or treated as a resource to guide students studying a particular topic. Undergraduate, graduate, professional .’
– M. Perelman, Choice
‘Von Tunzelmann has written a great book, impressive in both scope and depth. Often the reader is overwhelmed by the wealth of detail, at times by the profoundness of insight.’
– Paul Diederen, The Economic Journal
‘This is an impressive book, and an unusual one too. This is not only because of its length (more than five hundred pages), nor the large number of books and articles cited in the text (between seven and eight hundred). What really makes this book exceptional is its broad coverage and the way it is written.’
– J. Fagerberg, Journal of Evolutionary Economics
‘. . . Technology and Industrial Progress deserves to be widely read and should be of great interest to many business historians.’
– N.F.R. Crafts, Business History
‘These essays are a useful guide to the strengths and limitations of radical debate in the 1990s.’
– Joseph Melling, Business History
‘This book represents economic history at its best–theoretically informed but sceptical, unburdened by jargon or abstruse mathematics, alive to historical contingency, and comparative on a grand scale. Lucidly written, well referenced, and cogently organized into subsectioned chapters, its author’s premises made explicit and terms clearly defined, it merits inclusion as a standard text on all advanced courses in comparative industrialization.’
– Christine MacLeod, Journal of Economic History
‘The book makes good use of the most recent and classical theories of innovation to provide a framework to understand the industrial and technological change which has been going on since the eighteenth century.’
– Cristiano Antonelli, The Manchester School
Contents
Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Classical Theories of Economic Growth and Structure 3. Modern Analyses of Growth and Structural Change 4. Britain in the Industrial Revolution 5. European Industrialization, Late 18th to Early 20th Centuries 6. Industrialization in the USA, 1870–1930 7. Industrialization in the West, 1930s to the 1970s 8. Western Industrialization, 1970s to the 1990s 9. Industrialization in the USSR 10. Industrialization in Japan 11. The Newly Industrializing Countries 12. Conclusions
