.: Contact
.: Publications
.: Courses
.: CV

ECO 448 Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Spring 2011

• Course Objective
  The main objective is to enable students to understand and to analyze themselves the forces which determine industrial development. The material includes a wide range of issues from a variety of perspectives: broad historical analyses, microeconomic theory, the economics of technological change, the formation of industrial networks, globalization, and industrial policy from both a domestic and an international perspective. The course will be taught as a seminar. Papers in the reading list will be summarized and discussed in each lecture.

• Course Calendar
  Lecture hours Monday 13:40-15:30, Wednesday 11:40-12:30
  Room R-111

• Evaluation
  Assignment (15%, to be submitted by June 11, 2010)
  Midterm exam (35%, April 25, 2010, at 13:40)
  Final exam (50%, tba)

• Reading list is available here

  
  

  Outline of topics

  1. Industrial dynamics: introduction and basic concepts

  2. Technology and theories of economic development
  Neo-classical approach
  Neo-Smithian approach (the Theory of Flexible Specialization)
  Neo-Schumpeterian approach (Techno-economic Paradigms)
  Neo-Marxian approach (the Regulation school)

  3. The productivity paradox and the "new" economy
  Neo-classical approach
  Neo-Schumpeterian approach
  Neo-Marxian approach

  4. Technological change as an evolutionary process
  Elements of technological change: Links, chains, and feedbacks
  The "inner logic" of technological change: path-dependency and technological lock-in
  Technological change and market structure

  5. Technology, the firm, and networks
  The nature of the firm
  Technological change and the boundaries of the firm
  User-producer interactions
  Networks of innovators
  National systems of innovation

  6. Technology and "globalization"

.: 2006 ERC METU | Updated 19 February 2009 :.