On evolutionary technological change and economic growth: Lakatos as a starting point for appraisal

This paper proposes a reflection on evolutionary technological change and economic growth theory, which starts from the Lakatosian methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP) as an appraisal criterion. As the persistence of some inflexibility on the approach made difficult to capture fundamental features of that scientific endeavour, it was undertaken an analysis using an alternative framework developed by Hoover (1991). This last frame is used not as a formal methodology but as a language to find patterns in these theories. This exercise evolved then towards some considerations about the confrontation of these evolutionary theories with what can be seen (in a loose sense) as their ‘rival research programme’, the new neoclassical growth models.