Space and technological dynamics

Abstract

Examination of the problem of technological innovation has been fairly recent in the economic thought of this century. In fact, as J. Hicks (1979) reminds us, it dates back to the thirties. However, it found its definitive position only in more recent decades, when the rapid post-war expansion began to give signs of slowing down. It then became clear that the future of any economy depended to a significant degree on the capacity to produce not only manufactured goods, but knowledge as well. During this crisis social sciences, in discovering the structuring power exercised by technology on the organisation and dynamics of the economy, went through a profound upheaval, and new disciplines and directions of research asserted themselves: “the science of science”, as Maier recalls (1982), and the “economy of scientific research”.