Industrialization as a Historical Phenomenon

Grubler, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7814-4990 (1995). Industrialization as a Historical Phenomenon. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-95-029

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Abstract

Industrialization is shown as a time-specific and spatially heterogeneous process. The description of industrialization paths uses two concepts along a functional/temporal and a spatial dimension: Technology clusters, i.e., a set of interrelated technological, institutional and social innovations, drive particular (historical) periods of industrial output and productivity growth. A spatial taxonomy reflects the different degrees of development and intensiveness of industrialization among core, rim, and periphery.

In an inductive approach, industrial growth is described through the prism of changes in technology clusters and the spatially heterogeneous diffusion of industrialization on a global scale. "Industrialization paths" are discussed on the basis of the USA, Western Europe, Russia and Japan. The quantitative description focuses on macro-level indicators of industrial output, and the evolution of the productivity of factor inputs labor and energy. Energy intensiveness and carbon emissions are used as metric to assess changes in the environmental impacts of various industrialization paths, concluding that improvements in the efficiency of factor input use are part of the inherent incentive structure of industrial evolution. However, historical improvement rates will have to be considerably accelerated to lower absolute levels of industrial emissions.

Finally, the implications of industrial productivity growth and its distribution in the form of rising incomes (consumption) and free time (leisure) are discussed inter alia from an environmental perspective.

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