Sociedade, Tecnologia e Inovação Empresarial - Presidente da ...

Technology, institutionsand economic growthRichard NelsonColumbia University — New YorkDuring the last decade there hasbeen considerable research and writing proposing that one should understandthe coevolution of technology and institutions as being the heartof the economic growth process. This body of writing casts new lighton the factors that lie behind the large differences across nations in thegrowth of output per worker and per capita incomes that nations haveexperienced. It provides a perspective on the roles of government inthe economic growth process that is much richer and more illuminating,I believe, than more conventional views. I understand my assignmenttoday as to sketch out the key elements of this perspective.As many of you certainly recognize, the framework being espousedhere certainly is not brand new. Reflect on Adam Smith’s analysis ofprogress in pin making, written over 200 years ago. His account stressedthe interdependence between the progressive division of labor regardingthe tasks involved, and the development of new machinery thatimmensely increased labor productivity in the individual sub-tasks. KarlMarx saw economic growth under capitalism as being driven by technologicaladvance, which was associated with the increasing growth offirm size. Joseph Schumpeter associated the very rapid technical progressin mid-twentieth century United States with the development of industrialstructures involving large firms with a considerable amount of marketpower, and also with a growing strength and institutionalization ofscience. Moses Abramovitz in many writings has stressed the interdependenciesof technological advance and institutional structures as centralin the economic growth process. So has Christopher Freeman.Richard Nelson2 6 5Technology, institutions and economic growth