Working Paper #2020-012
Technological revolutions, structural change & catching-up
Technological revolutions, i.e., clusters of technologies that
collectively have a transformational impact on the global economy, are
rare events that dramatically influence the opportunities facing
countries at different levels of development. A central suggestion in
the relevant literature is that countries that manage to adopt the new
technologies associated with a specific technological revolution benefit
economically from it. This is also assumed to go together with a
changing specialisation pattern in international trade. The paper
considers the empirical merits of these suggestions, drawing on GDP and
trade data for a large number of countries on different levels of
development from the post-second-world-war period. The empirical
analysis reveals a major divide in the global economy between a group of
modern, industrialised countries, specialised in technology-based
production, and another group of countries, specialised in commodities
and resource-based products, and lagging behind both in terms of
technology and income. More to the future, the paper also discusses the
extent to which a new green technological revolution, with renewable
energy as a central element, is currently emerging, and what impact this
possibly might have for catching-up, structural change and economic
growth for countries at different levels of development, e.g., China.
- Keywords
-
- Technological revolutions
- catching up
- specialisation
- renewable energy
- China
- JEL codes
-
- O10
- O14
- O30
- O33
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Fagerberg, J., & Verspagen, B. (2020). Technological revolutions, structural change & catching-up (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2020-012). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=8483