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This chapter outlines how the development, diffusion and adoption of new technologies have shaped economic growth. Several major technological phases are identified, which differ from periods distinguished by global wars or major changes in growth patterns. Before 1940, large-scale industrialization and new technologies originated in the United States, diffusing to western European countries. Outside the Western core different development strategies were deployed. Only after 1940, countries in western Europe largely caught up to American productivity levels. The combination of technology diffusion and export-led growth in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and, more recently, China and India have enabled significant growth in living standards. The changes in cross-country income-level inequality have also had their within-country counterparts. The more recent period of IT-enabled growth primarily benefited high-skilled workers in Europe and the US, while low- and middle-skilled workers not only met competition from machines, but also from workers in low-wage countries.

The underlying central theme that drives this thesis is endogenous technological progress and its contributions to long run economic growth. Over the past four hundred years we have seen dynamic patterns of growth that have varied across countries and over time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Britain was the technological leader, with Germany and France catching up, and then in the twentieth century the world saw a new technological leader, where the United States forged ahead of Europe. This thesis is a collection of three self-contained studies where in each chapter one important technological epoch is examined back in time. Moreover, to understand the different forces of economic growth and to characterize each stage of development a time series estimation method is chosen, using dynamic time series techniques and estimation methods. The first study of this thesis is a journal article co-authored with my thesis supervisors (revised and resubmitted to Journal of Economic Growth), where, using long historical data for Britain over the period 1620-2006, we seek to explain the importance of innovative activity and population growth in inducing the transition from the Malthusian trap to the post-Malthusian growth regime in Britain. Furthermore, the paper tests the ability of two competing second-generation endogenous growth models to explain the British Industrial Revolution. The results suggest that innovative activity was an important force in shaping the Industrial Revolution and that the British growth experience is consistent with Schumpeterian growth theory. The second study in this thesis is a chapter solely written by me; however findings from this chapter have also been written up as a journal article and submitted to “European Economic Review”, where the article is currently under review. The journal paper titled “Innovation, Technological Change and the British Agricultural Revolution” and is co-authored with my thesis supervisors. In the second study, the roles of technological progress in advancing the productivity growth in British agriculture in the period 1620-1850 are examined. Two different indicators of technological progress are considered, namely, agricultural patents issued and number of technical books published on farming. In doing so, the modern endogenous growth models have been tested, namely, the Schumpeterian and Semi-endogenous models of economic growth, where support was acquired in favour of Schumpeterian growth model. The third and final study explores the contributions of technological progress on a sectoral basis to shed some light on the phenomenon of ‘America’s catching-up and forging ahead of Britain’. This study finds that agriculture and service sectors contributed significantly to the US take-off period. Furthermore, increased research intensity, R&D investments, together with increasing returns to land in the agricultural sector; and major transformations in the transport sector, paved the way for the American economy to grow faster than its counterparts in Britain. Overall, contributions from all three chapters fill a number of important gaps in the literature and show that accurate explanations of the mechanisms behind technological epochs back in time can have significant policy implications for both advanced and currently growing economies.

Recent developments in endogenous growth models have enabled researchers to reconsider some key events such as the take-off of the United States in the twentieth century. This paper investigates the roles played by innovative activity and population growth on comparative total factor productivity (TFP) growth between the US and the UK in the period 1870–2009. The study finds that the comparative lead in the US TFP was a race between innovative activity on the one hand and population growth on the other. While the first factor influenced TFP growth positively, the latter created a growth drag. Moreover, the findings strongly support the Schumpeterian hypothesis, where innovative activity has permanent growth effects in the long run.

The Australian growth experience appears to be a three-act phenomenon, with higher per capita income and living standards before 1890 and after 1940, disconnected by a 50-year period of no trend improvement in between. This paper examines the roles of technological progress and population growth in Australian productivity growth over the past two centuries. The empirical results confirm that while population growth had a negative effect, innovative activity had a positive effect on productivity growth. Furthermore, the estimates strongly support the Schumpeterian growth hypothesis, which predicts that productivity growth is driven by the levels of research intensity in the economy.

This paper performs a rigorous survey of existing measures of diversification and fills a number of missing gaps between the theoretical and empirical literature surveyed by previous authors. In addition, the study outlines the areas where future work is possible and in which direction researchers may advance their thoughts. A detailed discussion on the various methodologies employed by earlier researchers and their findings are presented. This survey indicates that there is further scope for development of new theories and the empirical literature suggests that there is scope for development of new measures of diversification.

Using long historical data for Britain over the period 1620-2006, this paper seeks to explain the importance of innovative activity, population growth and other factors in inducing the transition from the Malthusian trap to the post-Malthusian growth regime. Furthermore, the paper tests the ability of two competing second-generation endogenous growth models to account for the British growth experience. The results suggest that innovative activity was an important force in shaping the Industrial Revolution and that the British growth experience is consistent with Schumpeterian growth theory.