New technological path creation

evidence from the British and German wind energy industries

verfasst von

James Simmie, Rolf Sternberg, Juliet Carpenter

Abstract

The canonical economic literature on path dependence provides only a limited explanation of why and how new technological pathways are created initially. The motivation of this paper is to address this gap in the literature and argue that evolutionary economics theories of path dependence need to be linked with sociological explanations of how new technological pathways are created in the first instance by knowledgeable inventors and innovators. These arguments are developed by the authors in a hybrid socio-economic theory of new path creation. In this paper these theoretical arguments are illustrated empirically by a comparative analysis of the introduction and diffusion of new wind power technologies in Britain and Germany. The empirical analysis focuses on the key research question of why the introduction of these new technologies started earlier and has diffused sooner in Germany than in Britain.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Institut für Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeographie

Externe Organisation(en)

Oxford Brookes University
Universität Lyon

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Journal of evolutionary economics

Band

24

Seiten

875-904

Anzahl der Seiten

30

ISSN

0936-9937

Publikationsdatum

09.2014

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Unternehmensführung und Buchhaltung, Volkswirtschaftslehre und Ökonometrie

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 7 – Erschwingliche und saubere Energie

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-014-0354-8 (Zugang: Geschlossen)