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Technological Inertia in Economic History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Joel Mokyr
Joel Mokyr
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. 60208.
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Abstract

Technological progress depends for its success on a conducive social environment. The resistance to innovation is identified as a central element governing the success of new inventions. Such resistance usually takes the form of non-market processes. It consists of vested interests, whose assets are jeopardized by new techniques, as well as by intellectuals who are opposed to new technology on principle. The role of resistance in the British and French economies during the Industrial Revolution is assessed.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-First Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 325 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

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