Dynamics of Change and Long Waves

During the last five years IIASA has played an important role in reviving the long wave debate which has almost been forgotten since the works of Kondratieff, Schumpeter and others. IIASA initiated contacts among the various groups through out the world working in this area and organized four international conferences that addressed the questions of long term technological changes and economic growth. Although IIASA did not have a project on this specific topic a number of research activities within the Technology, Economy and Society (TES) Program are very closely related to the issues of long term development and cyclical phenomena. This paper analyzes the process of technological change over the last two hundred years from the perspective of structural transformations in energy, transport and infrastructures as they are related to the fluctuations in long- term development. It shows that both the diffusion of new technologies and the periods of accelerated economic growth are not homogeneously distributed in time but rather in recurring clusters. It is possible to distinguish periods of structural changes that are accompanied by the saturation of old, and the introduction of new, technologies and periods of economic expansion and widespread diffusion of new technologies. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the third long wave meeting which was jointly organized by IIASA and CRPEE -- Faculte de Droit et des Sciences Economiques, University of Montpellier, France