Institutions, Technology, and Circular and Cumulative Causation in Economics

Institutions, Technology, and Circular and Cumulative Causation in Economics focuses on the relation between technology and institutions and their mutual influence during processes of development and change. An understanding of technology as a combination of skill and equipment jointly with the influence of the institutional framework allows identifying a number of potentially adverse influences on the development potential and capacity in an economy. These are integrated as the isolation of single factors will not permit to formulate a generalized perspective on development processes. The possibility of differing institutional environments and differing technological capacities likely result in conditions that require context-dependent approaches for strengthening the development potential in a given situation. The development process Argentina has undergone since 1946 is used to illustrate how institutions and technology interact and impact on economic results

Henning Schwardt is a Postdoctoral Lecturer and Research Assistant at the Institute for Institutional and Innovation Economics (iino) at the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics at the University of Bremen, Germany.