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same broad industry. Thus, pharmaceutical development changed froman enterprise that basically employed organic chemists during the 1920sand 1930s, to an enterprise that, with the adof antibioticsvent afterWorld War II, required a significant infusion of scientists trained inbiology, to, after the advent of biotechnology, one that requires scientiststrained in molecular biology. The German university system servedadmirably in the first era. The American university responded muchmore rapidly and effectively to the changing needs during the secondand third era, and as a result American firms surged into the forefrontof pharmaceuticals.III. Coevolution of Technology and InstitutionsBy the mid 1970s, economists clearly knew that economic growthneeds to be understood as the result of the progressive introductionof new technologies, which are associated with increasingly higher levelsof worker productivity, and the ability to produce new or improvedgoods and services. As a broad trend, these new technologies havebeen progressively capital-using. The process increasingly has requiredhighly trained scientists and engineers to do the research and developmentwork needed to create and get in operation the new technologies,and in many cases has called for highly skilled workers tooperate the new technologies. At least economists looking at economicgrowth from an evolutionary perspective understood that the vastincreases in physical and human capital that have accompanied economicgrowth, as we have experienced it, should not be regarded asindependent sources of growth, but rather as handmaidens to technologicaladvance.While, as noted, economists always have understood institutions tobe important in the process, the kinds of studies described above havesignificantly sharpened that understanding. The prevailing institutionalstructure at any time has a profound affect on and reflects, the technologiesthat are in use, and which are being developed. In turn, newtechnologies often call for new modes of organizing work, new kindsDebates2 7 2Sociedade, Tecnologia e Inovação Empresarial