Perspectives on Technology

by Nathan Rosenberg

• ISBN13: 9780521290111
• ISBN10: 0521290112
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1976-07-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Perspectives on Technology consists of papers written by Nathan Rosenberg over a ten-year period, from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. Their origin was in Professor Rosenberg's interest in long-term economic growth processes and, especially, in the behaviour of industrializing societies. The form and direction which this book has taken reflect two basic influences: (1) a growing awareness of the centrality of technological phenomena in generating economic growth, and (2) a growing sense that, in spite of the basic and genuine insights into technological phenomena provided by the neo-classical economics, a deeper and richer understanding of the phenomena can only be achieved by a willingness to step outside the limited intellectual boundaries of this mode of reasoning.

Table of Contents

Some origins of American technology

Technological change in the machine tool industry, 1840-1910

America's rise to woodworking leadership

Anglo-American wage differences in the 1820's

The generation of new technologies

Problems in the economist's conceptualization of technological innovation

Neglected dimensions in the analysis of economic change

The direction of technological change: inducement mechanisms and focusing devices

Karl Marx on the economic role of science

Diffusion and adaptation of technology

Capital goods, technology, and economic growth

Economic development and the transfer of technology: some historical perspectives

Selection and adaptation in the transfer of technology: steam and iron in America 1800-1870

Factors affecting the diffusion of technology

Natural resources, environment and the growth of knowledge

Technology and the environment: an economic exploration

Technological innovation and natural resources: the niggardliness of nature reconsidered

Innovative responses to materials shortages

Science, invention, and economic growth

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