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This paper exploits recent contributions to the notions of modularity and autocatalytic sets to identify the functional and structural units that define the strongest systematic and self-sustaining channels of knowledge transfer and accumulation within the network of knowledge flows between technology fields. Our analysis reconstructs the architecture of the empirical knowledge pattern based on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent citation data at the level of resolution of three-digit technology classes, for the period 1975-99.

The introduction of a production function of technology embodying laws\ud of returns to research and development (R&D) is now standard practice in growth\ud theory. This paper offers a critical evaluation, in the light of a generalized N–K\ud model, of some recent contributions suggesting foundations for the existence of\ud laws of returns to R&D. It is argued that such contributions fail to analyze the way in\ud which research and development activity in the technological and scientific domains\ud affect the dimension, the hierarchic structure and the complexity of knowledge\ud search spaces. In the attempt at moving some analytical steps in this direction, this\ud paper considers the possibility that modularity effectively counters the rise in complexity\ud which would follow from idea growth and the increasing number of potential\ud interactions between component ideas. It is argued that the force of the modularity\ud argument finds its limits in the face of radical innovations that are general purpose,\ud but entail a deconstruction and reconstruction of the hierarchy of technological\ud interactions. It is also suggested that niche creation and knowledge spillovers elicit\ud the early development and subsequent diffusion of such radical innovations

This paper contributes to the recent macro-dynamics literature on demand-led growth, drawing upon the seminal idea that the implications of Harrodian instability may be tamed by a source of autonomous expenditure in the economy.Contrary to the other contributions in this literature, real autonomous expenditure is not growing at an exogenously given rate, and partly consists of a flow of profit-seeking R&D and innovation expenditures raising labour productivity through time. If the state of distribution, hence the wage share, is exogenously fixed and constant, the model gives rise to dynamics in a two dimensional state space, that may converge to, or give rise to a limit cycle around, an endogenous growth path. An exogenous rise of the profit share exerts negative effects on long-run growth and employment, showing that growth is wage led.

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