Mokyr 1-2
technology provides a "free lunch," an increase in output
without an increase in costs and labor
Roman empire:
- infrastructure/public works helped economic
growth
- commercial expansion (trade)
- Romans were interested in new technology but
didn't apply it to make money
- not much social mobility so not much reason
to try to make money
- interested in ideas more than in using them
- conquest
what causes economic growth
(increase in gross national product per capita)?
- investment (increase in
capital)--Solovian growth
- commercial expansion (increased
trade)--Smithian growth
- economies of scale (doing things
on a larger scale often costs less), population growth
- increase in knowledge and its
application (technological progress)--Schumpeterian
growth
If economic growth comes from technological change, then
where does technological progress come from? Before the
20th century not usually from organized research and development
The process of invention:
- technology push vs. demand pull Technology
push is an idea where we don't know how it will be useful, demand
pull is find the need then invent something to meet the need
- the problem is it isn't enough to invent a
gadget, you need to fit it into a system and manufacture and
market it. Some inventors are good at innovation, some
were not
- what are the steps from idea to new product?
- identify (or create) a need (preferably a
bottleneck whose solution will lead to rapid progress)
- invention--a new way of accomplishing
something--probably takes experimenting to get it right
- design/development--making that idea work
on a reasonable scale at a reasonable cost as a product
- bringing your new technology into
production--developing production and markets
- diffusion--the spread of the new
technology into widespread use
- the role of consumers
So what makes one society more creative than another?
- not just the accumulation of knowledge, because some
technologies could have been invented hundreds of years
earlier
- you need both invention and innovation (the process of
working out the practical details to bring a new invention
into use)
- some societies are not technologically creative because
they are good at invention but not innovation or vice versa
- for a society to be technologically creative you need:
- creative inventors and general openness to new ideas
- incentives for new ideas (the possibility of getting
rich, Nobel prizes...)
- diversity and tolerance (willingness to change the
status quo)
This book will focus on larger inventions (macroinventions),
not small incremental change (microinventions)
Technological progress in classical civilizations:
- Romans were more innovative in the public sector than the
private: aqueducts, public buildings, roads, war machines
- mechanical technology was used for war and toys and
science, but not for economic purposes
- Archimedes
screw
- Mokyr says don't overemphasize the lack of achievement
"Classical society was inventive, original, and
inquisitive. But it was not particularly technologically
creative." (pp. 28-9)
- inventions were not put to widespread use, despite
relatively high education and mobility
- some inventions were kept secret
- the economy grew, but based on commercial expansion, not
improvements in efficiency
Innovation is just as important as invention