Economic Growth and Technical Change
B30.3340.20
Tuesday 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Room: 585 KMC
Prof. Ryuzo Sato, C.V. Starr Professor of Economics and Director
The Center for Japan-US Business and Economic Studies
Leonard N. Stern School of Business
Office: MEC 7-190
Phone: (212) 998-0750
Fax: (212) 995-4219
E-mail: rsato@stern.nyu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 1:00-2:00 or by appointment
Course Description
The course will discuss the trends in economic growth and the factors
that influence them. Descriptive and optimal models will be considered
after a discussion of the appropriate analytical techniques. Consideration
of empirical studies that indicate the importance of technical change in
determining the growth rate lead to a discussion of microeconomic and growth
theoretical models of technical change. Specific topics will include techniques
for estimation of production functions and technical change, optimal control
methods and their application in growth theory, group theoretic methods
in economics dynamics, innovation and public policy and international trade
and R&D.
Reading Assignments
Textbooks:
- Ryuzo Sato and Gilbert Suzawa. Research and Productivity: Endogenous
Technical Change. Boston. 1983. Auburn House
- Christopher Freeman. The Economics of Industrial Innovation.
Cambridge. 1982. The MIT Press.
1. The Rise of Science-Related Technology
- Sato and Suzawa, Ch. 1 & 2
- Freeman, Ch. 1, 2, 3 & 4
- Bernal, J.D. (1958). World Without War. Routledge & Kegan
Paul.
- Freeman, C., J. clark, and L.L.G. Soete (1982). Unemployment and
Technical Innovation: A Study of Long Waves in Economic Development.
Frances Pinter.
- Gibbons, M. and R.D. Johnston (1972). The Interaction of Science
and Technology. Department of Liberal Studies in Science, University
of Manchester, Mimeo.
- Gibbons, M. and R.D. Johnston (1974). The Roles of Science in Technological
Innovation. Research Policy, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 220-42.
- Jewkes, J., D. Sawers, and R. Stillerman (1958). The Sources of
Invention. Macmillan (rev. ed. 1969).
- Phillips, A. (1971). Technology and Market Structure. Lexington
- Polanyi, M. (1962). The Republic of Science. Minerva,
Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 54-72.
- Porat, M.U. (1977). The Information Economy: Definition and
Measurement, Vols. 1-9, USGPO, Washington
- Price, D.J. de Solla (1963). Little Science, Big Science, Columbia
University Press.
- Price, D.J. de Solla (1965) Is Technology Historically Independent
of Science? Technology and Culture Vol. VI, No. 4, p.
553.
2. Research and Productivity
- Sato and Suzuwa, Ch. 3 & 4
- Brown, M. (1966) On the Theory and Measurement of Technical Change.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hicks, J. (1963) The Theory of Wages. London: Macmillan (originally
published in 1932).
- Sato, R. (1981). Theory of Technical Change and Economic Invariance:
Application of Lie Groups. New York: Academic Press.
- Sato, R. (1970). The Estimation of Biased Technical Progress and
the Production Function. International Economic Review. 11 (June
1970), 179-201.
- Nordhaus, W. (1969). Invention, Growth and Welfare. Cambridge:
MIT Press.
- Solow, R. (1957) Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function.
Review of Economics and Statistics, 39 (August 1957), 313-320.
3. Endogenous Technical Progress and the Theory of the
Firm
- Sato and Suzawa, Ch. 5, 6, 7 & 8
- Freeman, Ch. 5, 6, 7, & 8
- Samuelson, P. (1965) A Theory of Induced Innovations Along Kennedy-Weizsacker
Lines. Review of Economics and Statistics, 47 (November 1965),
343-56.
- Sethi, S. and T. McGuire (1977). Optimal Skill Mix: An Application
of the Maximum Principle for Systems with Retarded Controls. Journal
of Optimization Theory and Applications, 23 (October 1977), 245-75.
- Vernon, R. (1960). International Investment and International Trade
in the Product Cycle. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 80
(1966), 190-207
4. Public Policy and Innovation
- Sato and Suzawa, Ch. 9
- Freeman, Ch. 9 & 10
- Schmookler, J. (1966). Invention and Economic Growth. Harvard
University Press
- Schumpeter, J.A. (1934). The Theory of Economics Development.
Harvard University
- Schumpeter, J.A. (1942). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
Harper & Row
- Sato, R. and S. Tsutsui (1983). Technical Progress, Schumpeterian
Hypothesis and Structure of Market. Presented at Bonn University-harvard
University Symposium on Entrepreneurship, September 1983, Bonn, West Germany.
- Kamien, M. and N. Schwartz (1981). Innovation and Market Structure.
Cambridge University Press
5. Unresolved Problems: International Trade and R&D
- Bhagwati, J.n. (1982). Shifting Comparative Advantage, Protectionist
Demands, and Policy Response. in J. Bhagwati, (ed.) Import Competition
and Response. University of Chicago Press
- Dixit, A. and V. Norman (1980). Theory of International Trade.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
- Feenstra, R.c. (1982). Product Creation and Trade Pattern: A Theoretical
Note on the "Biological" Model of Trade in Similar Products,
in J. Bhagwati (ed.), Import Competition and Response,
University of Chicago Press.
- Grubel, H.G. and P.J. Lloyd (1975). Intra-Industry Trade. London,
Macmillan.
- Helpman, E. (1981). International Trade in the Presence of Product
Differentiation, Economies of Scale and Monopolistic Ccompetition: A Chamberlin-Heckscher-Ohlin
Approach. Journal of International Economics, 11, pp. 305-40.
- Krugman, P. (1979). Increasing Returns, Monopolistic Competition,
and International Trade. Journal of International Economics, 9,
pp. 469-79.
- Lancaster, K.J. (1980). Intra-Industry Trade Under Perfect Monopolistic
Competition, Journal of International Economics, 10, pp. 151-76.
- Spence, M (1976). Production Selection, Fixed Costs and Monopolistic
Competition. Review of Economic Studies, 43, pp. 217-35.
Supplementary Readings
- Sato, R. (1981). Theory and Technical change and Economics Invariance:
Application of Lie Groups. New York: Academic Press
- Sato, R. (1984). R&D Activities and the Technology Game: A Dynamic
Model of U.s.-Japan Competition. NBER Working Paper No. 1513, (Revised
Version: NYU, the Japan-U.S. Center Working Paper No. 2)
- Sato, R. and R.F. Hoffman (1968). Production Functions with Variable
Elasticity of Factor Substitution: Some Analysis and Testing. The Review
of Economics and Statistics.
- Sato, R. The Impact of Technical Change on the Holotheticity of
Production Functions. Review of Economic Studies, XLVII, 767-76.
- Sato, R. The Most General Class of CES Functions, Econometrica,
Vol. 43, No. 5-6 (September-November 1975).
- Samuelson, P.A. Using full Duality to Show that Simultaneously Additive
Direct and Indirect Utilities Implies Unitary Price Elasticity of Demand,
Econometrics, Vol. 33, No. 4 (October, 1965).
- Samuelson, P.A. Corrected Formulation of Direct and Indirect Activity.
Econometrica, Vol. 37, No. 2 (April, 1969).
- Beckman, M.J., R. Sato and M. Schupack. Alternative Approaches to
the Estimation of Production Functions and Technical Change, International
Economic Review, Vol. 13, No. 1, February 1972
- Hicks, J.R. Notes and Comments: Direct and Indirect Additivity,
Econometrica, Vol. 37, No. 2 (April, 1969).
- Sato, R. The Estimation of Biased Technical Progress and the Production
Function, International Economic Review, Vol. 11, No.
2 (June 1970).
- Houthakker, H.S. Addictive Preferences. Econometrica, Vol.
28, No. 2 (April 1960).
- Houthakker, H.S. A Note on Self-Dual Preferences, Econometrica,
Vol. 33, No. 4 (October, 1965).
- Sato, R. On the Class of Separable Non-Homothetic CES Functions,
April 1974.
- Sato, R. Capital-Labor Substitution and Economic Efficiency, The
Review of Economics and Statistics, August, 1961.