The New Structural Challenge

ABSTRACT: There are intimate and lasting connections between technical innovation, economic development and social and institutional change. A good way to begin a study of the employment and social implications of these interrelationships is to consider which technical innovations and technologies are important by virtue of their economic and social consequences. This paper argues that some of the new technologies have had an impact on the production system - and therefore their measurable macro-economic impact can be significant — while others affect society directly without necessarily having a major impact on the economy. For different reasons, both types of technologies need to be considered. The paper develops a taxonomy of technical change which is used to rank the economic impacts of various emerging technologies. The focus is on the information technologies (IT), since they are found to be by far the most pervasive.