General Purpose Technologies

Peter Rousseau () and Boyan Jovanovic ()

No 103, 2004 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: This paper develops a set of criteria for identifying the arrival of a general purpose technology (GPT) and applies them to the electification and IT "revolutions" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The criteria suggest that a GPT should be 1) pervasive, 2) improving over time, and 3) able to spawn new innovations. We find that electrification was more pervasive than IT, while IT has a clear lead with respect to improvement and innovation spawning

Keywords: GPT; Electrification; IT revolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 N1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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