Structural Economic Dynamics - Softcover

"Pasinetti's careful and lucid analysis yields valuable insights into some of the most complex and seemingly intractable problems confronting industrialized nations in the 1990s." Christopher Brown, Journal of Economic Issues

"...every reader will benefit, both at an elementary and at a more advanced level." Bertram Schefold, Journal of Economic Literature

This book is a theoretical investigation of the influence of human learning on the development through time of a 'pure labour' economy. The theory proposed is a simple one, but aims to grasp the essential features of all industrial economies. Economists have long known that two basic phenomena lie at the root of long-term economic movements in industrial societies: capital accumulation and technical progress. Attention has been concentrated on the former. In this book, by contrast, technical progress is assigned the central role. Within a multi-sector framework, the author examines the structural dynamics of prices, production and employment (implied by differentiated rates of productivity growth and expansion of demand) against a background of 'natural' relations. He also considers a number of institutional problems. Institutional and social learning, know-how, and the diffusion of knowledge emerge as the decisive factors accounting for the success and failure of industrial societies.