A structuralist perspective on the role of technology in economic growth and development

Abstract This paper presents an integrated view of what is termed a “structuralist” perspective to economic growth and development that stands in contrast to the mainstream orthodox or neoclassical view. In the structuralist view, structural changes are causes of growth rather than outcomes of a process of capital accumulation and of rising per capita incomes. Moreover, the growth process may be punctuated by periods of discrete shifts in resource allocation (“creative destruction”) and growth acceleration rather than being smooth throughout. Structural changes need not be automatic, they require a skill-specific infrastructure of new capabilities which, when established, generate new comparative advantages. Market failures may be pervasive due to problems of human capital accumulation, critical mass and discrete choice among alternative growth paths. Thus in addition to creating a favorable environment for business and assuring, through macroeconomic policy, adequate investment, successful growth may require an adequate industrial and technological policy, particularly at nodes of structural change. The paper surveys the structuralist insights appearing in the literature, starting with the early postwar economic development literature and including recently developed formal models. It also proposes a kinked or scalloped aggregate production function as a simple tool for structuralist analysis.

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