A Critical View of Innovation in the Context of Poverty, Unemployment and Slow Economic Growth

Roberto Kozulj - Fundación Bariloche

.

DOI: 10.4236/me.2011.23028                

Abstract

For the last two decades the study of technical innovation systems has been a regular practice. It has thus become a specific field in which different approaches are constantly emerging. Its importance derives not only from the needs of the productive sector in its search for new markets and opportunities, but also from the fact that the formulation of public policies that will foster growth, employment and income depends on its comprehension. In spite of the efforts made to understand innovation systems as socio-technical systems, emphasis was laid on how to create new market opportunities and improve competitiveness, disregarding a proper understanding of the global dynamics of growth. This was pushed into the background by the belief that only good microeconomic results will lead to good macroeconomic ones. Thus, the complex and eVolutionary perspective of the relationship between urbanization, growth, technological change and macroeconomic structural changes has been ignored. This paper attempts to further explore and analyse this topic by dealing with a series of issues: firstly, the effects of the decline in urban population growth on the use of productive capacity in several important sectors; secondly, structural changes in product composition caused by the saturation of urbanization processes and its effect on the behavior of productive units, and finally, the effects of shorter lifecycles of products on income distribution. The whole perspective is useful to outline the global context in which socio-technical systems develop and the challenges faced when testing their capacity to provide solutions for labor and poverty-related problems.

Keywords

Economic Growth Theories, Urbanization, Unemployment Causes, Long-Term Structutal Crisis, Poverty, Dual Society, Innovation

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	H. Torun and C. ?icecki, “Innovation: Is the Engine for the Economic Growth?” The Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Ego University, Izmir, April 2007.
[2]	R. M. Solow, “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 39, No. 3, 1957, pp. 312-320. doi:10.2307/1926047
[3]	N. Rosenberg, “Technology and Economic Growth,” In: L. Ralph and D. C. Mowery, Eds., Technology and the Wealth of Nations, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1992, p. 443.
[4]	P. Romer, “Growth Based on Increasing Returns Due to Specialization,” Aerican Economic Review, Vol. 77, No. 2, 1987, pp. 56-62.
[5]	R. Lucas, “On the Mechanics of Economic Development,” Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1988, pp. 3-42. doi:10.1016/0304-3932(88)90168-7
[6]	G. Dosi and R. Nelson, “An Introduction to Evolutionary Theories in Economics,” Economics Journal of Evolu- tionary Economics, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1994, pp. 153-172. doi:10.1007/BF01236366
[7]	C. Marchetti, “Society as a Learning System: Discovery, Invention, and Innovation Cycles Revisited,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 18, 1980, pp. 267-282.
[8]	Ch. Freeman and C. Pérez, “Structural Crises of Adjustment, Business Cycles and Investment Behavior,” In: G. Dossi, et al., Eds., Technical Change and Economic Theory, Pinter, London, 1988, pp. 39-62.
[9]	G. Mensch, “Stalemate in Technology,” Ballinger, Cambridge, 1978.
[10]	C. Freeman and L. Soete, “The Economics of Industrial Innovation,” 3rd Edition, The MIT Press, London, 1997.
[11]	D. Weiss, “Ibn Khaldun on Economic Transformation,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1995, pp. 29-37. doi:10.1017/S0020743800061560
[12]	P. Davidson, “John Maynard Keynes,” Great Thinkers in Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, Suffolk, 2007-2009.
[13]	R. J. Barro and X. Sala-i-Martín, “Convergence,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 100, No. 2, 1992, pp. 223-251. doi:10.1086/261816
[14]	W. J Baumol, “Productivity, Growth, Convergence and Welfare: What the Long-Run Data Show,” American Economic Review, Vol. 76, No. 5, 1986, pp. 1072-1085.
[15]	E. Moncayo, “El Debate Sobre la Convergencia Econó- mica Internacional e Interregional: Enfoques Teóri- cos y Evidencia Empírica,” Revista Eure, Vol. XXX, No. 90, 2004, pp. 7-26.
[16]	S. Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” The American Economic Rewiew, Vol. 45, No. 1, 1955, pp. 1-28.
[17]	A. Gurría, “Lecture, OECD Secretary-General at the Copenhagen Business School,” Denmark, Copenhagen, 2007.
[18]	D. Harvey, “The Condition of Posmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change,” Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990.
[19]	J. Schor and J.-Il You, “Capital, the State and Labour,” Edward Elgar, Surrey, 1995.
[20]	A. Glyn, A. Hughes, A. Liepitz and A. Singh, “The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age,” WIDER, Helsinki, 1988.
[21]	A. Liepitz, “New Tendencies in the International Division of Labour: Regimes of Accumulation and Modes of Regulation,” In: A. Scott and M. Storper, Eds., Production, Work, and Territory: The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism, Allen and Unwin, Boston, 1986.
[22]	I. Wallerstein, “World―System Analysis, Theory and Methodology,” Sage Publications, London, 1982.
[23]	S. Okita, T. Kuroda, M. Yasukawa, Y. Okazaki and K. Iio, “Population and Development: The Japanese Experience,” In: P. Hauser, Ed., Population and Development: The Japanese Experience, Syracuse University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 327-338.
[24]	J. Gugler, “The Urban-Rural Interface and Migration. Gilbert,” In: A. Gilbert and J. Gugler, Eds., Cities, Poverty and Development, Urbanization in the Third World, Oxford University Press, London, 1993.
[25]	E. B. Masini, “Impacts of Mega-City Growth on Families and Households, Mega-City Growth and the Future,” United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 1994, pp. 215- 230.
[26]	E. J. Hobsbawm, “History of the XXth Century,” Editorial Crítica, Buenos Aires, 2003.
[27]	A. van der Woude, A. Hayami and J. de Vries, “Urbanization in History: A Process of Dynamic Interactions, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990.
[28]	R. Kozulj, “Urbanization and Growth: Results of the Correlations between Total Population, Urban Population and Population in Large Cities with GNP Level for Cross-Sectional Series on a World Scale in the 1950- 1990 Period,” FB/Working Papers 03/01, Bariloche, August 2000.
[29]	R. Kozulj, “People, Cities, Growth and Technological Change: From the Golden Age to Globalization, en Tech- nological Forecasting and Social Change,” Elsevier Science, Vol. 70, 2003, pp. 199-230.
[30]	Bauman, “In search for Politics,” FCE, Buenos Aires, 2001.
[31]	A. J. Shenhar, Z. Hougui, D. Dvir, A. Tischler and Y. y Sharan, “Understanding the Defense Conversion Dilemma,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 59, No. 3, 1998, pp. 275-289. doi:10.1016/S0040-1625(98)00026-2
[32]	J. Rifkin, “The European Dream: How the European View of the Future Is Outshining the American Dream,” Buenos Aires, Paidós Estado y Sociedad, 2003.
[33]	R. Kozulj, “Choque de Civilizaciones o Crisis de la Sociedad Global?” In: M. y Dávila, Ed., Problemática, Desafíos y Escenarios Futuros, Madrid, 2005.
[34]	Allianz Global Investors, “Analysis and Trends, the Sixth Kondratieff―Long Waves of Prosperity,” January 2010.
[35]	ILO, “Global Statistics on the Labour Market Page,” 2011.
[36]	E. F. Keller, “Le siecle du gen,” Gallimard, Paris, 2003.
[37]	N. G. Roegen, “The Entropy Law and the Economic Process,” Harvard University Press,Cambridge, 1971.
[38]	F. Geels, “From Sectoral Systems of Innovation to Socio- Technical Systems: Insights about Dynamics and Change from Sociology, and Institutional Theory,” Department of Technology Management, Eindhoven University, 2004, pp. 897-920.
[39]	T. R. La Porte, “Social Responses to Large Technical Systems: Control or Anticipation,” Kluwer Academic Pub- lishers, Dordrecht, 1991.
[40]	T. P. Hughes, “Networks of Power, Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930,” Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1971.
[41]	T. P. Hughes, The Evolution of Large Technological Systems,” In: W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes and T. Pinch, Eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 51-82.
[42]	R. Mayntz and T. P. Hughes, “The Development of Large Technical Systems,” Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, 1988.
[43]	C. M. Wesley, “Businnes Cycles: 10-17,” Burt Franklyn, New York, 1970.
[44]	P. S. Meyer, W. J. Yung and J. H. Ausubel, “A Primer on Logistic Growth and Substitution: The Mathematics of the Loglet Lab Software,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 61, No. 3, 1999, pp. 247-271. doi:10.1016/S0040-1625(99)00021-9
[45]	F. Ch. Lo, “The Impacts of Current Global Adjustment and Shifting Techno-Economic Paradigm on the World City System,” In: R. Fuchs, E. Brennan, J. Chamie, F. Ch. Lo and J. I. Uitto, Eds., Mega-City Growth and the Future, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 1994.
[46]	Penn World Table, “The Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania,” Mark 5.6 A.
[47]	United Nations, “World Urbanization Prospects,” United Nations, 2001.
[48]	R. Kozulj, “Megalopolises, Technological Change and Economic Growth: From the Golden Years to the Present Crisis,” In: L. E. di Marco, Economic Humanism and Scientific Technology: Bases for the Reformulation of Economic Analysis, Vol. I, CIEC, Córdoba National University, Córdoba, 1999.
[49]	W. J Baumol, “Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: The Anatomy of Urban Crisis,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 57, No. 3, 1967, pp. 415-426.