Faster Technological Progress Research Articles

Leadership, Education and Training for Youth in Contemporary African Union Programs

From September 16–19, 2022, the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hosted the Transforming Education Summit at U.N. Headquarters in New York on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly. This summit mobilized stakeholders to act and collaborate in solidarity to find solutions for transforming education by 2030. This summit’s outcomes were national and international commitments to transform education with increased public engagement and support. Before the conference, the African Union had just concluded its fourth Specialized Technical Committee on Education, Science, and Technology with the theme of utilizing education, science, technology, and innovation to foster recovery in Africa and respond to, strengthen, and build resilience in a post-COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, there was a need to enhance the response from the science, technology, and innovation sectors. Growing globalization and faster technological progress have created many new social, economic, environmental, and COVID-19 problems. Because of this, the Coalition on Media and Education for Development Africa Forum (CAFOR) and its partners have been looking at the needs and opportunities that come from these changes. CAFOR and its partners are also determined to look beyond Africa’s Continental Education Strategy (CESA 16–25) and examine how schools can prepare children in Africa for jobs and technologies that have yet to be created to solve future problems with innovation. CAFOR is forwardlooking and works towards building stronger partnerships on the continent, ensuring a shared responsibility to identify new opportunities and solutions.

Financial Development and Economic Growth: The Case of Pakistan

The pioneering contributions of Goldsmith (1969), Mckinnon (1973) and Shaw (1973) regarding the relationship between financial development and economic growth has remained an important issue of debate in developing economies. The theoretical argument for linking financial development to growth is that a well-developed financial system performs several critical functions to enhance the efficiency of intermediation by reducing information, transaction, and monitoring costs. A modern financial system promotes investment by identifying and funding good business opportunities, mobilises savings, monitors the performance of managers, enables the trading, hedging, and diversification of risk, and facilitates the exchange of goods and services. These functions result in a more efficient allocation of resources, in a more rapid accumulation of physical and human capital, and in faster technological progress, which in turn feed economic growth [Creane, et al. (2004)].

Medium- and long-term development path of natural gas consumption in China: Based on a multi-model comparison framework

As a kind of relatively clean fossil energy, natural gas will face severe uncertainties in the background of carbon neutrality. Reviewing the medium- and long-term development trend of natural gas consumption is the prerequisite to better understanding the status of natural gas and ensure the sustainable development of natural gas industry. In this paper, a multi-model comparison framework is established on the basis of 8 representative integrated assessment models (CE3METL, DNE21+, IPAC, AIM/CGE, IMAGE, REMIND, WITCH and POLES). Then, the medium- and long-term evolution trend of China's total primary energy consumption and natural gas consumption in different scenarios of climate policy is discussed. In addition, comparative analysis is conducted on key time nodes such as 2030, 2045 and 2060. And the following research results are obtained. Firstly, the prediction results of most models indicate that China's total primary energy consumption in 2060 will be lower than the level in 2019 except for the scenario of national determined contribution (NDC). Secondly, by 2060, the carbon neutrality goal year, the cross-model average level of natural gas consumption under the NDC, 2.0 °C, and 1.5 °C scenarios will be 6943 × 108 m3, 4342 × 108 m3 and 2502 × 108 m3, respectively. Thirdly, under the 1.5 °C scenario, the decrease of total primary energy consumption shall begin in 2020, which means that faster technological progress and more effective combination of “nudge” policies are needed. Fourthly, under the temperature control goal of 2.0 °C, natural gas consumption will account for about 13.6% of China's primary energy consumption in 2060, and this proportion will drop to 9% under the stricter 1.5 °C scenario. In conclusion, the multi-model comparison results can present different development paths of China's total primary energy consumption and natural gas consumption and its proportion during 2020–2060 more comprehensively, so as to provide support for formulating the medium- and long-term policies and strategies of natural gas industry under the challenge of climate change.

Inter-fuel substitution possibilities in South Africa: A translog production function approach

This study applies the translog production function to investigate technical change and energy substitution possibilities among petroleum, coal and electricity over the period 1980–2012. Ridge regression technique is introduced to correct for multicollinearity in the data. The study documents several findings: first, electricity and coal are found to be the major drivers of South African output and also have a faster technological progress over petroleum. Second, all energy inputs were found to be substitutes; therefore removing all price ceilings and subsidies on petroleum will decrease the demand for petroleum in effect protecting South African economy from external petroleum price shocks while reducing CO2 emissions. This will also increase the demand for electricity from renewable sources; however the success of this substitution will depend on policies geared towards large scale electricity production to meet demand. Third and finally, this study points to evidence that, even though coal dominates as the main energy source of South Africa, enhancement in research and development of renewable energy technologies could present opportunities for electricity as a potential replacer of coal; and as such, accelerating the CO2 mitigation effort of the South African government.

Exploring the worldwide patent surge

Worldwide patent filings are at historically unprecedented levels. In 2011, the total number of patent applications for the first time exceeded two million – double the approximately 1.05 million patents filed in 1995. Understanding what is behind this growth is important, as it may indicate faster technological progress, new innovation models and strategic shifts in how companies use the patent system. Policy-makers need to understand what drives the growth in patenting worldwide, not least to evaluate how the patent system can cope with the increasing flow of applications. A number of studies have looked at the growth in patent filings in individual countries, but have not focused on the world as a whole. This paper seeks to fill this gap by providing an analysis of global patenting trends using the most comprehensive data currently available. Among other things, it finds that subsequent patent filings – additional filings of the same invention, mostly in additional countries – contributed considerably to the growth in filings worldwide, pointing to globalization as one important driver of filing growth. However, no single factor can fully explain the marked increase in the use of the patent system.

Technological unemployment in industrial countries

Using annual data on 21 industrial countries from the period 1985 to 2009 and a large number of controls, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of technological change on unemployment. As proxy for technological change, it uses the ratio of triadic patent families to population. According to the regression results, an increase in technological change substantially increases unemployment over 3 years. There is no long-term effect, though. The results are robust to both endogeneity and numerous variations in specifications. They support theoretical contributions according to which faster technological progress may increase unemployment, at least during a transition period.

Violence and property rights

Since the middle ages, when Europe was still at a Malthusian stage of development, interpersonal violence has been in steady decline, and institutions and norms limiting violence – in particular property rights – have expanded. Here we put forward a Malthusian model of violence where these trends can be interpreted as a response to easing population pressure, following an acceleration in technological progress. The idea is that agents rationally risk dying in violent resource competition in order to make more of their children survive starvation. Violence carries a positive externality, because those who die free up resources for survivors. This generates a socially optimal level of violence, which can be implemented with the right amount of property rights protection. It is shown that faster technological progress can lead to a decline in violence and improved property rights protection, similar to the path followed by Europe.

Technology Cycle and its Multiple Equilibria

This paper shows the existence of multiple equilibria in technology the cycle. According to Cho (2008), two main reasons of faster replacement demand for main computer systems are faster technological progress and increased demand for services a telecommunication company provides. This paper primarily focuses on the role of faster technological progress due to the faster replacement demand for mainframe computer systems. The cyclical relationship among replacement demand for mainframe computer systems, faster technological progress, and R&D expenditure shows multiple equilibria in technology. The technology cycle can happen as follows. Increased replacement demand for mainframe computer systems is induced by faster technological progress in computer industry. Then, this induced replacement demand can increase R&D expenditure in the computer industry. Again, this increased R&D expenditure also causes faster technological progress. Using data from Cho (2008) and a simple calibration, I show the existence of multiple equilibria in the above technology cycle, which exist in both the lower part and higher part of technology cycle.

Law and the Science of Networks: An Overview and an Application to the 'Patent Explosion'

The network may be the metaphor of the present era. A network, consisting of nodes and links, may be a group of individuals linked by friendship; a group of computers linked by network cables; a system of roads or airline flights - or another of a virtually limitless variety of systems of connected things. The past few years have seen an explosion of interest in network science, which seeks to move beyond metaphor to analysis in fields from physics to sociology. Network science highlights the role of relationship patterns in determining collective behavior. It underscores and begins to address the difficulty of predicting collective behavior from individual interactions. This Article seeks first to describe how network science can provide new conceptual and empirical approaches to legal questions because of its focus on analyzing the effects of patterns of relationships on collective behavior. The Article then illustrates the network approach by describing a study of the network created by patents and the citations between them. Burgeoning patenting has raised concerns about patent quality, reflected in proposed legislation and in renewed Supreme Court attention to patent law. The network approach allows us to get behind the increasing numbers and investigate the patterns of relationships between patented technologies. We can then distinguish between faster technological progress, increasing breadth of patented technologies, and a lower patentability standard as possible explanations for increased patenting. We find that, since the late 1980s, the disparity in likelihood of citation between the most citable and least citable patents has grown, suggesting that the least citable patents may represent increasingly trivial inventions. One possible explanation of this increasing stratification is increasing reliance by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on the widely criticized motivation or suggestion to combine test for non-obviousness, which is at issue in the case of KSR v. Teleflex, currently pending at the Supreme Court. We also discuss how network science may be employed to address other issues of patent law.

Anticipation effects of technological progress on capital accumulation: a vintage capital approach

Due to embodied technological progress new generations of capital goods are more productive. Therefore, in order to study the effects of technological progress, a model must be analyzed in which different generations of capital goods can be distinguished. We determine in what way the firm adjusts current investments to predictions of technological progress. In the presence of market power we show that a negative anticipation effect occurs, i.e. current investments in recent generations of capital goods decline when faster technological progress will take place in the future, because then it becomes more attractive to wait for new generations of capital goods. In case that only investments in new machines are possible, actually a whole wave of anticipation phases arises.

The U.S. Structural Transformation and Regional Convergence: A Reinterpretation

We present a joint study of the U.S. structural transformation (the decline of agriculture as the dominating sector) and regional convergence (of southern to northern average wages). We find empirically that most of the regional convergence is attributable to the structural transformation: the nationwide convergence of agricultural wages to nonagricultural wages and the faster rate of transition of the southern labor force from agricultural to nonagricultural jobs. Similar results describe the Midwest’s catch‐up to the Northeast (but not the relative experience of the West). To explain these observations, we construct a model in which the South (Midwest) has a comparative advantage in producing unskilled labor–intensive agricultural goods. Thus it starts with a disproportionate share of the unskilled labor force and lower per capita incomes. Over time, declining education/training costs induce an increasing proportion of the labor force to move out of the (unskilled) agricultural sector and into the (skilled) nonagricultural sector. The decline in the agricultural labor force leads to an increase in relative agricultural wages. Both effects benefit the South (Midwest) disproportionately since it has more agricultural workers. With the addition of a less than unit income elasticity of demand for farm goods and faster technological progress in farming than outside of farming, this model successfully matches the quantitative features of the U.S. structural transformation and regional convergence, as well as several other stylized facts on U.S. economic growth in the last century. The model does not rely on frictions on interregional labor and capital mobility, since in our empirical work we find this channel to be less important than the compositional effects the model emphasizes.

The implications of the difference in the growth rates of the prices of building resources and outputs in Hong Kong

The prices of construction resources (construction cost) have been increasing faster than construction output prices (construction price) in Hong Kong since the mid-1970s, giving rise to a long-term divergence between the two price trends. As the difference has existed for quite a long time, it cannot be adequately explained by a short-term change in supply and demand conditions. The present paper introduces the major indices that reflect the trends of the prices of construction resources and outputs in Hong Kong. It also attempts to explain, from an economic point of view, the major factors which contributed to the divergence between the long-term trends of the prices of construction resources and outputs. One of the conclusions is that, for the past 25 years, the productive efficiency of the Hong Kong building industry has benefited from and been greatly upgraded by imported construction technologies, as well as by a burgeoning quality of human resources. The data and examples quoted in the present paper are sided towards building construction. Therefore, the scope of investigation of this paper, strictly speaking, is confined to the building industry, and does not include the building services and civil engineering subsectors. However, because of the higher degree of mechanization and faster technological progress in the civil engineering and building services subsectors, the present author believes that the results and conclusions should also be applicable to the whole construction industry.

The implications of the difference in the growth rates of the prices of building resources and outputs in Hong Kong

The prices of construction resources (construction cost) have been increasing faster than construction output prices (construction price) in Hong Kong since the mid‐1970s, giving rise to a long‐term divergence between the two price trends. As the difference has existed for quite a long time, it cannot be adequately explained by a short‐term change in supply and demand conditions. The present paper introduces the major indices that reflect the trends of the prices of construction resources and outputs in Hong Kong. It also attempts to explain, from an economic point of view, the major factors which contributed to the divergence between the long‐term trends of the prices of construction resources and outputs. One of the conclusions is that, for the past 25 years, the productive efficiency of the Hong Kong building industry has benefited from and been greatly upgraded by imported construction technologies, as well as by a burgeoning quality of human resources. The data and examples quoted in the present paper are sided towards building construction. Therefore, the scope of investigation of this paper, strictly speaking, is confined to the building industry, and does not include the building services and civil engineering subsectors. However, because of the higher degree of mechanization and faster technological progress in the civil engineering and building services subsectors, the present author believes that the results and conclusions should also be applicable to the whole construction industry.

The Behavior of Nontradable‐Goods Prices In Europe: Evidence and Interpretation*

AbstractThis paper examines the evolution of the relative price between tradable and nontradable goods in a group of European countries. A model of an open economy is used to analyze different factors that can account for an increase in the relative price of nontradable goods. These factors are (a) faster technological progress in the tradable goods sector, (b) demand shifts toward nontradable goods, and (c) real wage pressures. the relevance of these factors is analyzed empirically for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The Behavior of Nontradable Goods Prices in Europe: Evidence and Interpretation

This paper examines the evolution of the relative price between tradable and nontradable goods in a group of European countries. A model of an open economy is used to analyze different factors that can account for an increase in the relative price of nontradable goods. These factors are: (a) faster technological progress in the tradable goods sector; (b) demand shifts toward nontradable goods; and (c) real wage pressures. The relevance of these factors is analyzed empirically for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.