This text discusses the fundamental role played by qualitative change in economic development and the contribution made by technological change and innovation.

Presents the evolutionary perspective of the economy as perpetually moving, driven by innovation, and the empirical research this has guided.

This volume on evolutionary approaches to economic development and growth is a member of a family of special volumes that Springer has published on Evolu tionary Economics recently. The present volume has excellent predecessors. There is a special volume on "Evolution in Markets and Institutions", edited by Ulrich Witt, and another on "Evolutionary and Neoclassical Perspectives on Market Structure and Economic Growth", edited by Yannis Katsoulacos. And there are more in the pipeline. The volumes already published reflect the broad ranging interests of evolu tionary economists, and within the scope delineated they are devoted to major research areas of the discipline. The editorial intention behind the venture of special volumes has been to bundle together some of the research areas in order to sharpen the problem focus and to generate research synergies within major research fields. We may, somewhat obviously, define a research field by its research topics. For the present purpose however, we may wish to conceive the research conducted by evolutionary economists as belonging to either a research area that is inspired in its problem perspective by neoclassical economics or to one that is not. The very success of the critique of the neoclassical paradigm relied on a preoccupation with its research scope and questions. Evolutionary econom ics has scored marvelously in challenging major neoclassical stands, and neoclassical economics may never be quite the same in the future.

Technology has long been seen as a path to economic growth. However there is considerable debate about the exact nature of this relationship. Economics of Structural and Technological Change employs a wide range of theoretical and applied approaches to explore the concept of technological change. The book begins with a series of in-depth discussions of the economic analysis of technological change. The second section contains a discussion of theoretical models of technological change, focusing on issues such as time and innovation. The third section brings together a number of applied analyses of technological change and examines the effect of factors such as human resource constraints, patenting and science and technology indicators.

Technology's contribution to economic growth and competitiveness has been the subject of vigorous debate in recent years. This book demonstrates the importance of a historical perspective in understanding the role of technological innovation in the economy. The authors examine key episodes and institutions in the development of the U.S. research system and in the development of the research systems of other industrial economies. They argue that the large potential contributions of economics to the understanding of technology and economic growth have been constrained by the narrow theoretical framework employed within neoclassical economies. A richer framework, they believe, will support a more fruitful dialogue among economists, policymakers, and managers on the organization of public and private institutions for innovation. David Mowery is Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at the School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley. Nathan S. Rosenberg is Fairleigh Dickinson Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is the author of Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics (CUP, 1983).

Commissioned and brought tohgether for the research project by the world-renowned Council on Foreign Relations, the authors have produced an important compendia in applied economics.