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Innovation Patterns in Crisis and Prosperity: Schumpeter's Long Cycle Reconsidered
Innovation Patterns in Crisis and Prosperity Schumpeter's Long Cycle Reconsidered Author:Alfred Kleinknecht With the economic problems facing Western economics during the last decade, theories about an alleged forty-five to sixty years' pulsation in economic life (the Kondratieff-Schumpeter cycle) have experienced a remarkable renaissance. In a survey of a literature the present book draws attention to some early Dutch studies of long waves which have... more » been discovered recently in the archives of the University of Amsterdan: the disucssion between Josef A. Schumpeter and Simon Kuznets on clusters of innovations and long waves in economic life is also reviewed. The essential points of this old controversy are still questioned today: do long waves exist at all? Are they statistical fact or artefact? Is there any empirical evidence of Schumpeter's clustering of major innovations as a driving force behind the long waves in economic life? And why should such a clustering occur? Based on a new econometric test method, the author argues that new waves can be identified not only in price series but also in the aggregate output of a number of key industrialized countries. The authors's own research corroborates Schumpeter's hypothesis that, far from being caused by a flash of genius, radical innovations occur in clusters, interacting with economic fluctuations and social change. Beside fluctuations in the rate of innovations, there are also important shifts in the ratio of product to process innovations. In developing his conclusions the author is able to respond to academic criticism of his earlier work on long waves.« less