Technical Change Theory and Learning Curves: Patterns of Progress in Energy Technologies

Tooraj Jamasb

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: This paper presents a comparative analysis of energy technology learning and progress within the framework of Schumpeter’s invention-innovation-diffusion paradigm. We estimate learning by doing and research rates for a range of energy technologies in four stages of technical progress. Emerging and mature technologies respond slowly to research and development (R&D) and capacity expansion; evolving technologies exhibit high learning-by-doing and research rates; reviving technologies exhibit considerable response to learning-by-research although they do not face significant market constraints. We generally find higher learning-by-doing than learning-by-research rates but do not find any development stage where learning-by-doing alone is the dominant driver of technical change. Also, high capital intensity and market constraints appear to slow down the pace of progress of emerging and evolving technologies. We find little scope for potential substitution between learning-by-doing and learning-by-research across the technologies and different stages of their development path.

Keywords: Energy technology; electricity; technical change; learning curves (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 Q4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2006-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-ino
Note: IO
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.electricitypolicy.org.uk/pubs/wp/eprg0608.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Technical Change Theory and Learning Curves: Patterns of Progress in Energy Technologies (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:0625

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jake Dyer ().