Background

In the last thirty years or so, economists and other social scientists have paid increasing attention to the process of technical change. This burgeoning body of literature has been able to shed light into the “black box” of technology and has already produced a good number of robust empirical findings and fruitful theoretical insights. However, notwithstanding the progress attained in this field, the measurement of technical change in its multifarious dimensions has remained an elusive issue. Additionally, there are still few contributions devoted to the construction of models capable of accounting for the observed regularities in the patterns of technical change such as learning curves, clustering of innovations in time, skewed distribution of innovation sizes.

Objectives

The first aim of this workshop is the discussion of new methods and materials to be adopted for a more sophisticated measurement of the rate and direction of technical change in different contexts and historical periods. More specifically, we are interested both in contributions using “direct measures” of technical change such as product performances and technical characteristics and in contributions based on the refinement of traditional indicators such as patents, productivity indices, etc. The second aim of the workshop is the development of models of innovation capable of accounting for observed empirical regularities in innovation patterns.
Papers are invited on the following themes:

• Exercises of empirical measurement and “mappings” of the dynamics of technical change in different contexts (including exercises of empirical reckoning of technological paradigms and trajectories)
• New Indicators and approaches for measuring the rate and direction of technical change at different level of analysis (micro, industry and macro)
• Models of innovation processes (including NK models, percolation, etc.)

Invited Speakers

• Robert C. Allen (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
• Paul A. David (Stanford University)
• Giovanni Dosi (Sant’ Anna School of Advanced Studies)
• Jesus Felipe (Asian Development Bank)
• Koen Frenken (Eindhoven University of Technology)
• Jessika Trancik (Santa Fe Institute)
• Nebojsa Nakicenovic (Vienna University of Technology)
• Gerald Silverberg (UNU-Merit)
• Bart Verspagen (UNU-Merit)

Paper Submission

If you are interested in participating to the workshop, send an extended abstract (800-1000 words) or full paper to alessandro.nuvolari@sssup.it AND to roberto.fontana@unibocconi.it by April 5, 2010. The decisions of paper acceptance will be communicated by April 12, 2010.

The workshop will consists of 12-14 talks over two days with ample space for discussions, therefore only a restricted number of papers will be accepted. Contributions will be selected based on the originality and quality of the paper, and the relevance to the workshop topic and themes. Presenters from institutions that are DIME members can ask for refunding of their travel and accommodation costs (one author per paper).

Questions concerning the conference can be addressed to Laura Ferrari (administrative issues, email: l.ferrari@sssup.it) or Alessandro Nuvolari (scientific issues, email: alessandro.nuvolari@sssup.it)

Workshop Scientific Committee:

• Giovanni Dosi (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies),
• Roberto Fontana (University of Pavia and KITeS-Bocconi University),
• Alessandro Nuvolari (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies)