A long-wave hypothesis of innovation

Graham, Alan K.; Senge, Peter M.

doi:10.1016/0040-1625(80)90103-1

Cited by 66 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Each cycle consists of periods of prosperity followed by recession, depression, and finally recovery. J. J. van Duijn has updated the work of Kuznets to the mid 1970's (Van Duijn, 1977 (Graham and Senge, 1980). The paper utilized a variety of data on long-term trends in innovation collected by Gerhard Mensch.…”

Section: The Long Wave Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transportation services and innovation in the housing industry: A study of the relations between transportation and production

1991

Transportation Research Part A: General

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Innovations improve the organization of production and provide new products and services. While it is accepted that economies are stimulated by innovations, the role of transportation improvement in stimulating innovation has not been sufficiently examined.This role is examined in this study. A methodology for examination of the contribution of transportation improvements to production is presented. Residential housing construction is chosen as the sector of production for study. This sector is large and important, is generally considered to be experiencing reduced or negative productivity growth, and is transportation intensive.This thesis begins with an analysis of conventional productivity studies. These studies fall short in their attempts to explain productivitychanges. An examination of the long history of housing construction reveals that productivity changes have resulted from the adoption of innovations, innovations enabled by improvements in transportation.Following a discussion of innovation theory, a list of housing innovations and a typology for their classification is presented. From the list, drywall construction is chosen as for case study.To provide a temporal frame for the analysis of housing technology, provide time series data on growth and change, and explore simple relationships, trends in transportation and housing productivity are presented and examined. These data characterize transportation systems as mature and productivity in housing as stagnating.Investigation of the specific relations between transportation improvement and housing productivity change is the subject of the last section of the thesis. The savings enabled by the adoption of the drywall construction innovation are estimated. The calculation of savings is based on estimates of innovation adoption rates and saturation levels assuming the truck-highway system had not been deployed. Using this approach, the benefit of truck highways through this single innovation is found to be on the order of fourteen percent of truck related road costs.

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Section: The Long Wave Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transportation services and innovation in the housing industry: A study of the relations between transportation and production

1991

Transportation Research Part A: General

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“…The NM shows how fundamental physical processes in the economy can create the long wave without any variation in innovation rates. The bunching of innovations can thus be explained as the result of entrainment of the innovation process by the long wave (Graham and Senge 1980, p. …”

Section: 31mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since 1975 the System Dynamics National Model (NM) has provided an increasingly rich theory of the long wave (Forrester 1981(Forrester , 1979(Forrester , 1977(Forrester , 1976Graham and Senge 1980;Senge 1982;Sterman 1985a, Sterman 1985b This paper describes the integrated theory of the long wave that has now emerged from the NM. The behavioral underpinnings of the theory are discussed and contrasted against traditional economic theory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economic long wave: Theory and evidence

Sterman

1986

System Dynamics Review

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The economic crisis of the 1980s has revived interest in the economic long wave or Kondratiev cycle. Since 1975 the System Dynamics National Model has been the vehicle for the development of a dynamic, endogenous, integrated theory of the economic long wave. This paper describes the integrated theory that has now emerged from extensive analysis of the full National Model and from simple models.Simulations of the model are presented to show the wide range of empirical evidence accounted for by the model, including many of the symptoms of the present economic crisis.In particular, the theory suggests the long wave arises from the interaction of two fundamental facets of modern industrial economies. First, the existence of physical lags in the economy, information limitations, and bounded rationality in economic decisionmaking creates the potential for oscillatory behavior. For example, the physical lags in capital acquisition coupled with locally rational decision rules governing production and investment create the potential for highly damped fluctuations in capital investment with a period of roughly twenty years. In isolation, these oscillatory structures are stable and do not produce a long wave.However, a wide range of self-reinforcing processes exist which amplify the inherent oscillatory tendencies of the economy, leading to the long wave.A large number of these self-reinforcing processes have been identified.These processes involve many sectors of the economy including capital investment, labor markets and workforce participation, real interest rates, inflation, debt, savings and consumption, and international trade.The paper discusses the relative strengths of these mechanisms and the amplification of the long wave through their interactions. The linkages of the long wave theory to innovation, technological progress, social innovation, and political value change are discussed.

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“…Although the comprehensive work on the subject has yet to appear, there seems to be a prevailing hunch among scholars working on technological innovation [3,4,7] that the cycles of innovations and the Kondratief wave are somehow linked to a tendency of many technological trends to reach learning plateaus together. If this indeed proves to be the case, it would be another case where uncontrolled learning of subsystems is destabilizing to the system as a whole.…”

Section: Technological Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Technological learning, technological substitution, and technological change

Robinson¹

1980

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

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A long-wave hypothesis of innovation

Cited by 66 publications

References 8 publications

Transportation services and innovation in the housing industry: A study of the relations between transportation and production

Transportation services and innovation in the housing industry: A study of the relations between transportation and production

The economic long wave: Theory and evidence

Technological learning, technological substitution, and technological change

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