Directed induced technological change : theory and empiricism

How technological change affects wages, employment and the income distribution are core topics in economics since the very beginnings of modern economic research. Who are the winners and losers of innovations? Is technological progress always to the advantage of some groups and to the disadvantage of others, hence has progress naturally a certain direction? Those are central questions of recurrent debates on the social impact of innovations. In addition, the question was raised what causes technological change to take a certain direction? In the history of economic thought, various ‘economic and ‘social variables were considered to direct technological change towards one or another production factor.Looking at the long history of economic thought on induced directed technological change, we find waves of intensive discussion and periods of little progress. It turns out that novel empirical findings, on income distribution, wage dispersion and unemployment, induced most discussions. Findings ‘alarming the society and contradicting the economic orthodoxy were usually the starting points of intensive debates. The main aim of this dissertation is to analyze classical and neoclassical contributions on induced, directed technological change and how empirical findings caused, intensified and shaped debates. In the first paper we analyze classical authors views on directed technological change and contrast those theories with more recent empirical findings for the time. The second paper studies neoclassical contributions on induced, directed technological change from the beginning of neoclassical thought to recent discussions. It highlights how empirical findings caused waves of contributions and how those debates influenced the neoclassical theory. The last paper contributes to the recent discussion on how computerization influences European labor markets. It shows empirically similarities and differences of several European labor market developments.