A dynamic input–output model with explicit new and old technologies: an application to the UK

Abstract

Progress is traditionally measured by the improvement of an economy's average characteristics from year to year. Some deeper insight might be gained by splitting the averages into explicit parameters for the new and old technologies at work within the same year, and recognising that innovative growth is driven just by the ‘potential difference’ between these two types of technology. Economic modelling in this light generates volatile development paths greatly resembling actual statistical time series, giving a holistic description of cycles, structural change, structural unemployment, relative price shifts and capacity utilisation issues. The paper expands the author's elaborations of the explicit-new-technology approach from prototype economies to that of the UK. Forecasts very close to reality are achieved including the 1992 cyclical decline. All this gives empirical support to the premise that the input–output method, if modified, could become a competitive tool for analysing ‘spontaneous’ market forces, as well as for direct planning. The need for separate statistical accounting of parameters for new technologies at macro- and industry-levels is substantiated.