Forms Of Technological Change Research Articles

Algorithmic augmentation of democracy: considering whether technology can enhance the concepts of democracy and the rule of law through four hypotheticals

The potential use, relevance, and application of AI and other technologies in the democratic process may be obvious to some. However, technological innovation and, even, its consideration may face an intuitive push-back in the form of algorithm aversion (Dietvorst et al. J Exp Psychol 144(1):114–126, 2015). In this paper, I confront this intuition and suggest that a more ‘extreme’ form of technological change in the democratic process does not necessarily result in a worse outcome in terms of the fundamental concepts of democracy and the Rule of Law. To provoke further consideration and illustrate that initial intuitions regarding democratic innovation may not always be accurate, I pose and explore four ways that AI and other forms of technology could be used to augment the representative democratic process. The augmentations range from voting online to the wholesale replacement of the legislature’s human representatives with algorithms. After first noting the intuition that less invasive forms of augmented democracy may be less objectionable than more extreme forms, I go on to critically assess whether the augmentation of existing systems satisfies or enhances ideas associated with democracy and the Rule of Law (provided by Dahl and Fuller). By imagining a (not too far-fetched) future in a (not too far-removed) democratic society, my conclusion is that, when it comes to democracy and the Rule of Law, intuitions regarding technology may lead us astray.

Breakthrough and Disruptive Innovation: A Theoretical Reflection

The aim of this paper is a theoretical reflection which attempt is to define the breakthrough and disruptive innovation phenomena. For many years, scholars have studied the different forms of innovation and have provided new definitions and proposed different approaches to this topic. An issue discussed in this work is the differences between disruptive and breakthrough innovations, which can be perceived as similar but are producing different effects in the industry and market structure, and as well in the product structure and the technological approach to develop an innovation. This paper aims to develop a univocal meaning in the literature, differentiating the two phenomena, and provides a framework for the analysis of the different forms of technological change, studying its pervasive influence on our economy.

The Impact of R&D on Skill-specific Employment Rates in the UK and France

We apply nonlinear Autoregressive-Distributed Lag (ARDL)-based methodologies to examine the nature of the effects of changes in R&D (intensity) on the employment rates of ‘high-skill’, ‘medium-skill’ and ‘low-skill’ labour and also whether or not these effects are symmetric. The empirical results based on the annual data for the period of 1991–2017 have suggested that while increased R&D has favourable effects on the employment rate of ‘high-skill’ labour in France, it has a negative impact on this type of labour in the UK. On the other hand, while the given increase in R&D has been found to be negatively affecting the employment rates of both ‘low-skill’ and ‘medium-skill’ labour in France, it has no impact on the employment rates of these two types of labour in the UK. These results may suggest that the dominant form of technological change in France is possibly a combination of ‘low-skill automation’ and ‘task-based’ whereby new technologies are simultaneously leading to replacement of ‘low-skill’ and ‘medium-skill’ labour by machines and the creation of new tasks (jobs) in which ‘high-skill’ labour has a comparative advantage. In the UK, the dominant form of new technologies resulting from additional R&D efforts seems to be in the form of ‘high-skill automation’ whereby ‘Robotics and Artificial Intelligence’ kind of new technologies might be causing replacement of ‘high-skill’ labour with machines. These results suggest that new technologies might be exerting adverse effects on income distribution in different ways in the UK and France.

Modeling Sustainability Scenarios in the Baltimore–Washington (DC) Region

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners today are confronted with unprecedented uncertainty in economic, political, and technological environments, especially at the regional scale. An increasingly common approach to addressing such uncertainty is exploratory scenario analysis. To provide new insights into the methods and utility of such analyses, we conducted a scenario analysis of the Baltimore (MD)–Washington (DC) region by engaging a technical advisory committee and exercising a loosely coupled suite of advanced transportation, land use, and environmental impact models. Our analysis suggests the future is indeed uncertain and may evolve into plausible but quite different alternative scenarios. Key drivers of these scenarios include fuel prices; the rate and form of technological change, especially in the transportation sector; and the restrictiveness of land use controls.Takeaway for practice: By developing exploratory scenario analyses and analyzing them using advanced computational models, planners can gain insights into how best to address uncertain development trends, such as how and to what degree planners can influence the adoption of electric and automated vehicles, how and where to guide development patterns through land use controls, and how best to respond to variation in the cost of energy, which could have dramatic impacts on the future sustainability of cities and regions. Although such scenario analyses cannot in most circumstances provide unambiguous robust or contingent policy prescriptions, they can provide important insights for raising public awareness and provide the foundation for further policy evaluation.

Not All Technological Change Is Equal: Disentangling Labor Demand Effects of Simultaneous Changes

We separate and directly measure the labor-demand effects of two simultaneous forms of technological change–automation and parts consolidation. We collect detailed shop-floor data from four semicon...

Not All Technological Change is Equal: Disentangling Labor Demand Effects of Automation and Parts Consolidation

We measure the labor-demand effects of two simultaneous forms of technological change—automation of production processes and consolidation of parts. We collect detailed shop-floor data from four semiconductor firms with different levels of automation and consolidation. Using the O*NET survey instrument, we collect novel task data for operator laborers that contains process-step level skill requirements, including operations and control, near vision, and dexterity requirements. We then use an engineering process model to separate the effects of the distinct technological changes on these process tasks and operator skill requirements. Within an occupation, we show that aggregate measures of technological change can mask the opposing skill biases of multiple simultaneous technological changes. In our empirical context, automation polarizes skill demand as routine, codifiable tasks requiring low and medium skills are executed by machines instead of humans, while the remaining and newly created human tasks tend to require low and high skills. Consolidation converges skill demand as formerly divisible low and high skill tasks are transformed into a single indivisible task with medium skill requirements and higher cost of failure. We conclude by developing a new theory for how the separability of tasks mediates the effect of technology change on skill demand by changing the divisibility of labor.

Mergers and acquisitions in Brazilian industry: a study of spillover effects

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of different kinds of merger and acquisitions (M&As) on domestic industries’ productivity in the form of technological change (TC) and efficiency change (EC) in the Brazilian extracting and processing industries.Design/methodology/approachPanel data analysis is employed to test the impact of different kinds of M&As spillovers on each component of productivity growth. The database contains data collected from 2007 to 2011 referring to the Brazilian industries. The estimation procedure involves two stages. The first stage decomposes TFP growth into EC and TC using a input-based Malmquist Productivity Index. In the second step, EC and TC indexes are used interchangeably as a dependent variable in panel data regressions on the M&As-spillover variables.FindingsThe results indicate a positive relationship between TC and M&As made by Brazilian majority capital acquiring foreign-held capital from a company established abroad, which is consistent with reverse spillover theory. They also suggest an inverse relationship between TC and M&A operations made by companies with foreign majority capital acquiring both Brazilian-held capital and foreign-held capital from a company established in Brazil. Only the sectors that are capable of increasing their productivity via TC are able to benefit from technology transfer.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited by the extent of data aggregation applied, which did not identify M&A transaction effects at the firm level. The available data do not allow isolating the effects of M&A processes on industry performance, given the co-occurrence of several factors that affect the performance of the industry. The study results imply that public managers must remain cognizant of the critical need to preserve and maximize competition between foreign and domestic firms while promoting a competitive environment that encourages the development of domestic technological capacities and skilled human capital.Practical implicationsM&A processes raise important issues with respect to organizational decisions and industrial policy. Studies of M&A transactions may be of fundamental importance to the expansion of healthy companies as they evolve through successive stages of growth and development. Liberalizing regulations to promote M&A transactions, and corporate market control is only justified if it promotes social welfare and economic development. Understanding the complexity and dynamics of this phenomenon and appreciating the heterogeneity of possible outcomes can lead to more relevant discussion regarding their contributions.Social implicationsResults found in this study indicate the need for greater efforts to understand how M&A operations, especially those associated to foreign-held capital, interact with local owned enterprises in developing economies and what benefits can be achieved through public policy. M&A operations need to be well evaluated by considering the kinds and intensities of externalities they might generate, whether and how local firms can potentially internalize those gains, building up absorptive capacities in order to achieve productivity spillover gains.Originality/valueThis study not only offers a more accurate understanding of the diverse nature and effects of M&A operations, but also stimulates a more relevant public policy discussion related to both foreign direct investment and OFDI incentives in Brazil. The growing economic importance of the activities of developing emerging countries’ multinational enterprises is making governments more inclined to re-evaluate their political strategies. Indeed, governments are beginning to recognize that markets need to be created, monitored and nurtured.

Adaptive Capacity and the Dynamics of Operational Capabilities

We develop a microfoundational theory of the dynamics of routines in order to understand heterogeneity in firms’ capacity to adapt to technological change. We show, via a computational model, that a simple process of individual-level learning in the presence of interdependencies can produce organization-level outcomes with the canonical properties of routines: constancy, efficacy, and organizational memory. This process not only produces performance heterogeneity, but also heterogeneity in adaptive capacity to different types of technological change (incremental, discontinuous, disruptive). One implication is that an organization’s exploration policy in the formative periods of routine development influences the adaptive capacity of its routines in maturity. This suggests important strategic trade-offs, not only between performance and adaptive capacity, but also between adaptive capacities to different forms of technological change.

On the Identity of Technological Objects and User Innovations in Function

Recent research on user innovation has concentrated on changes in the physical form of the objects concerned to the neglect of changes in their intended use or function. In this paper we advance a theory of the technical identity of a technological object that gives due weight to both its form and its function, and we use this theory to categorize different forms of technological change and to unpack some neglected aspects of user-driven innovations in function.

Output, Prices, and the Velocity of Money in Search Equilibrium

A monetary-search model with match specific preferences and traded quantities is analyzed to assess how aggregate output, the price level, and the velocity of money are affected by various forms of technological change. Changes in the productive technology lead to output and prices moving in opposite directions but provide no prediction for monetary velocity. The matching technology directly affects monetary velocity and output but has little impact on prices. Transactions technologies, which affect the fixed cost of trading, are ambiguous with respect to comovements of output and prices but systematically impact velocity.

Industrial and Regional Restructuring in the US Women's Dress Industry, 1963 – 92

In this paper we explore the impacts of competition on the US women's dress industry and examine the response of that industry in the form of technological change, industrial reorganization, and regional relocation. We demonstrate that women's dress producers adopted varying strategies to cope with competitive pressure at different time periods and in different places. In the 1960s, the dress industry was characterized by two main trends: technological change and domestic relocation of plants from the US northeast to the southeast and west. From the 1970s onwards, organizational changes became increasingly important as firms in core dress-production states such as California and New York externalized growing volumes of labor-intensive work. In part, the value added of this contribution to debates about industrial restructuring lies in our use of plant-level data that allow a richer understanding of the dynamics of industrial competition.

SOME MARKET EFFECTS OF E-COMMERCE

An important characteristic of E-commerce is that it is a form of technological change. The effects of E-commerce induced reductions in business production costs and on seller to buyer transaction costs are assessed. Comparative static models for different market structures are used to assess the effects of E-commerce on prices, quantities, aggregate efficiency gains, and the distribution of benefits and costs. Ultimately consumers are the principal beneficiaries via lower prices. Competitive forces and profit incentives induce firms to adopt cost reducing E-commerce technology.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Recent contributions by Brookes (1990), Saunders (1992), and Inhaber and Saunders (1994) argue that cost‐effective improvements in energy efficiency may, in the long run, lead energy use to grow more rapidly than it would in a world of fixed technologies. Since efficiency improvements may be viewed as a form of technological change that both reduces the effective cost of energy services and stimulates economic activity, energy demand may, under some circumstances, rise even as energy productivity improves. This paper examines this hypothesis using a simple model that distinguishes the roles of energy and energy services in production activities. In this model, improved energy efficiency can‐not give rise to increased energy use unless: (i) energy costs dominate the total cost of energy services and (ii) expenditures on energy services constitute a large share of economic activity. Since neither of these assumptions is empirically plausible, the paper concludes that energy efficiency improvements will yield long‐run reductions in energy use under the assumptions of the model.

The measurement of information technology absorption into information handling processes in business

Abstract The need for a comparative measure of information technology absorption in business is discussed. Studies of various forms of technological change are reviewed in terms of three issues; the level of measurement used, the research techniques/methods used and the approaches to the measurement of technology absorption. The requisite properties for an assessment of information technology absorption within business are outlined. A framework for a structured interview schedule is proposed which could assess approaches to information handling at several levels of analysis (e.g. departments, sites, organizations, industries). A pilot factor analysis of the IT items within the schedule across a sample of businesses reveals a sensible three-factor structure of IT influence within information handling. This form of measure is shown to offer sufficient sensitivity to assess technological changes within organizations and be relatable to behavioural outcomes. The extent of changes in management roles is shown ...

Technological Change and the Superneutrality of Money: Note

The study of the effect of the supply of money on real economic variables has had a long history in economic research. Sidrauski [8] was the first to demonstrate that, in the context of an intertemporal maximizing model with real money balances in the utility function, the rate of monetary expansion did not influence the steady-state capital stock or the real rate of interest. This result, termed the of money, contrasted sharply with previous models, which did not use such an optimizing framework. 1 Subsequent studies have shown that the superneutrality result can be altered if some of the assumptions of the Sisrauski model are modified. If money is a productive input [3, 5] or if the labor supply is endogenous [1], then the real rate of interest, or the capital-labor ratio, is not invariant to the monetary growth.2 However, no one has yet examined the effect of differing money growth when technological change is present. This omission seems especially serious since superneutrality properties apply to the comparative steady-state behavior of the economy.3 4 This note attempts to fill this gap by demonstrating that even the simple forms of technological change will in general nullify the superneutrality result, and that the real rate of interest and the capital-labor intensity will depend on the parameters of the utility function. In particular, it is shown that only if the utility function is of the class exhibiting constant relative risk aversion in all arguments will the superneutrality of money be valid.

On the dynamics of industrial evolution

Recent ideas emerging from the Brussels school of non-equilibrium systems analysts are adapted to formulate some simple evolutionary models of a self-organizing industrial system. Certain forms of technological change are represented as structural fluctuations (innovative variations), which can result in quite different development paths for each industry. The chosen approach postulates a random element in the timing and location of industrial innovations, whereas the growth or survival of particular firms is still governed by economic and demographic constraints in the urban or regional marketplace. More complex models of industrial change, which allow for joint consideration of the demographic and industrial dimensions of social development over space and time, are also contemplated.

The use of an identity to examine the association between technological changes and aggregate labour utilization in agriculture

Summary The purpose of this article is to examine certain aspects of the interaction between changes in agricultural technology and changes in the aggregate level of labour utilization in agriculture. The first part of the article describes an identity which establishes a relationship between the average output per person in agriculture, the size of the agricultural labour force in relation to the area under cultivation, and the average yield per acre of cultivated land. It also suggests that changes in each of the two latter parts of the identity can be associated with a particular form of technological change. The second part presents the Japanese, Taiwanese and Mexican experiences of agricultural growth in terms of the identity, with supporting data on the nature of the technological changes that have occurred. The final part begins with a summary of the experience of the three countries. Thereafter, it suggests that, in view of the high rate of growth of the labour force in developing countries, there should be a greater appreciation of the ways in which government policies may influence the direction of technological changes and of the possible implications of these changes on aggregate levels of labour utilization in agriculture. The approach to assessing the impact of technological change that is incorporated in this paper differs in two respects from the approaches of standard literature on the subject (3, pp. 88–101; 4, pp. 709–29; 1, pp. 312–20). ∗ In the first place, it involves an explicit though partial explanation of the phenomenon rather than an emphasis on measuring its effect. Each of the two forms of technological change—land‐saving and labour‐saving—is identified as the introduction of particular new resources. A more complete explanation would require an additional hypothesis as to why individual entrepreneurs might want to innovate (that is, to introduce new resources); no such hypothesis is included in this study. In the second place, the suggested approach does not require the specification of a production function. The use of an identity has the advantage of allowing useful insights into the process of technological change while avoiding the analytical biases that can be introduced in specifying a production function.