Stalemate in Technology, 1925-1935: The Interplay of Stagnation and Innovation

In: Historische Konjunkturforschung, S. 60-74

Open Access

Abstract

"This paper attempts to explain the coming and going of the Great Depression purely in real-economic terms by exhibiting some long-run regularities in the evolutionary interplay between innovation and Stagnation. This interplay seems to go through long-range cycles of structural change. According to our propositions, Stagnation is the result of imbalanced technological change: for too many years there were too many rationalizing (R) innovations and too few expansionary (E) innovations. As the E/R ratio becomes too low, the socio-economic system becomes structurally unstable (crisis) and structurally ready (recovery) for a new spurt of basic innovations and a good many expansionary changes." (author's abstract)