Global Dimensions of Technological Change

这项研究的目的是分析全球化的技术影响。全球化被定义为一个双管齐下的过程，朝着创建全球一体化经济的方向发展。这一进程包括要素市场和初级商品市场的一体化以及全球环境问题所需要的经济政策的国际协调、对产品标准的日益增长的需求以及日益紧密的宏观经济联系。全球化影响到技术创新的所有阶段--最初的发明、生存和传播。这个项目的总体主题极其重要，因为它侧重于全球化可能如何影响发明速度、新发明的多样性、它们可能的生存以及它们的传播等问题。这项研究将首先开发多样性减少的进化模型，这些模型直接借鉴越来越多的文献，这些文献承认技术变化是一个进化过程。对制度和技术变革之间关系的历史分析表明，一定程度的经济间竞争力对于保持技术创造力至关重要。项目的第二部分将从这个角度分析1871年之后的技术历史。第三，该项目将通过使用历史和模拟技术描述和分析技术进步的阻力来关注技术进步的政治经济学。这项研究可能会表明，众多具有竞争力的经济体是抵御这种阻力的最佳保证。还将分析全球化可能如何影响这种阻力。

The purpose of this research is to analyze the technological implications of globalization. Globalization is defined as a two pronged process moving toward the creation of a world-wide integrated economy. This process consists of the integration of factor and commodity markets and the international coordination of economic policies necessitated by global environmental problems, the growing need for product standards, and ever tighter macroeconomic linkages. Globalization affects all stages of technological creativity-- initial invention, survival, and diffusion. The over arching theme of this project is extremely important because it focuses on the issue of how globalization might affect the rate of invention, the diversity of new inventions, their likely survival, and their diffusion. The research will first develop evolutionary models of decreasing diversity that draw directly on the growing literature that recognizes technological change as an evolutionary process. An historical analysis of the relation between institutions and technological change suggests that a certain level of inter- economy competitiveness is essential for the preservation of technological creativity. The second part of the project will analyze the history of technology after 1871 from this point of view. Third, the project will focus on the political economy of technological progress by describing and analyzing resistance to it, using both historical and simulation techniques. This research is likely to suggest that a multitude of competitive economies is the best guarantee against such resistance. How globalization might affect this resistance will also be analyzed.