Explaining Technology

A long tradition explains technological change as recombination. Within this tradition, this Element develops an innovative combinatorial model of technological change and tests it with 2,000 years of global GDP data and with data from US patents filed between 1835 and 2010. The model explains 1) the pace of technological change for a least the past two millennia, 2) patent citations and 3) the increasing complexity of tools over time. It shows that combining and modifying pre-existing goods to produce new goods generates the observed historical pattern of technological change. A long period of stasis was followed by sudden super-exponential growth in the number of goods. In this model, the sudden explosion of about 250 years ago is a combinatorial explosion that was a long time in coming, but inevitable once the process began at least two thousand years ago. This Element models the Industrial Revolution as a combinatorial explosion.

List of contents

1. Introduction; 2. Competing explanations of technology; 3. The theory of combinatorial evolution; 4. Our model; 5. Our Tri-data result; 6. Niche theory; 7. Homo tinkerus; 8. Entrepreneurship and innovation; 9. CODA; Appendix; References.

Summary

This Element develops an innovative combinatorial model of technological change and tests it with 2,000 years of data from global GDP data and US patents, thus generating the observed historical pattern of technological change. This Element models the Industrial Revolution as a combinatorial explosion.

Foreword

This Element describes a combinatory model of technological change that explains both world economic history and the Anthropocene crisis.

Product details

• Authors: Abigail Devereaux, Brian Fath, Brian D. Fath, Fath Brian D., Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Gatti Roberto Cazzolla, Herriot James, James Herriott, Wim Hordijk, Stuart Kauffman, Kauffman Stuart, Roger Koppl, Roger (Syracuse University Koppl, Robert Ulanowicz, Robert E. Ulanowicz, Ulanowicz Robert E., Sergi Valverde
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2023
• EAN: 9781009386258
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0938625-8
• No. of pages: 75
• Series: Elements in Evolutionary Economics
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Economics; SCIENCE / Applied Sciences, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Research, c 1800 to c 1900, Business innovation, economic growth