Long-Wave Research: The State of the Art, Anno 1983

Delbeke, J. (1984). Long-Wave Research: The State of the Art, Anno 1983. IIASA Collaborative Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: CP-84-053

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Abstract

In this paper a classification and a survey of recent long-wave theories are presented. According to the basic variable of each approach, real-economic, monetary-financial, and social structure theories can be discerned.

The inductive research is concentrated round the generalization of logistic growth paths borrowed from natural science, and the traditional but perhaps more preferable descriptive statistical methods for treating historical time series.

The more deductive research is the most expansive field, and four directions can be found in it. The historical-institutional approach of Freeman and his SPRU group considers essentially the diffusion of the microelectronics technology complex as the most important challenge for the world economy. The growth-theoretical approach, starting with Mensch's publications, deals more with the analysis of unstable growth paths originating from technological basic innovations. The system dynamics model simulation of Forrester and his MIT group accentuates the rational behavior of microeconomic agents resulting in macroeconomic instability, caused by a self-ordering mechanism. In this context, monetary and financial variables seem to be important amplifiers of that instability. Finally, the influence of extraeconomic variables is an important debating theme. Indeed, fundamental technological change leads to institutional innovations on a national but most of all on an international level, and this leaves ample room for economic policy.

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