http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/2002/12/01#technological-change Origins of innovations. Spread of innovations. Conditions for their success. Conditions leading to technological decline. Conditions leading to technological stagnation. Fixing the directions of technological progress. Origins of systematic research and development. Economics of R&amp;D. Psychology of engineering design and technological creativity. Relations to <a href="arch-design.html">other sorts of design</a>. <a href="qwerty.html">QWERTY and path-dependence</a>. <ul>Recommended (obviously inadequate): <li>Steven Berlin Johnson, <cite>Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation</cite> [Review: <a href="../reviews/where-good-ideas-come-from/">Go to the Reef, Thou Dullard, and Consider Its Ways</a>] <li>Nathan Rosenberg, "The Direction of Technological Change: Inducement Mechanisms and Focusing Devices", <cite>Economic Development and Cultural Change</citE> <strong>18</strong> (1969): 1--24 [<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1152198">JSTOR</a>; <a href="http://afinetheorem.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/the-direction-of-technological-change-inducement-mechanisms-and-focusing-devices-n-rosenberg-1969/">commentary from "A Fine Theorem"</a>] </ul> <ul>To Read: <li>Philippe Aghion, Nick Bloom, Richard Blundell, Rachel Griffith and Peter Howitt, "Competition and Innovation: An Inverted-U Relationship", <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/0033553053970214"><cite>The Quarterly Journal of Economics</citE> <strong>120</strong> (2005): 701--728</a> <li>W. Brian Arthur, <cite>The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves</cite> <li>Wiebe E. Bijker, <cite>Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Towards a Theory of Sociotechnical Change</cite> [<a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262522274">Blurb</a>] <li>Branscomb and Auerswald, <citE>Taking Technical Risks: How Innovators, Executives, and Investors Manage High-Tech Risks</cite> <li>Louis Bucciarelli, <cite>Designing Engineers</cite> <li>W. Bernard Carlson, <cite>Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Eletric, 1870--1900</cite> <li>Subrata Dasgupta, <cite>Technology and Creativity</cite> <li>Dym, <cite>Engineering Design</cite> <li>Jon Elster, <cite>Explaining Technical Change</cite> <li><cite>An Engineer in the Garden of Eden</cite> <li>Hill, <cite>The Science of Engineering Design</cite> <li>David R. Meyer, <cite>Networked Machinists: High-Technology Industries in Antebellum America</cite> [<a href="http://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/ecom/MasterServlet/GetItemDetailsHandler?iN=9780801884719&qty=1&viewMode=3">blurb</a>] <li>Petroski <ul> <li><cite>Evolution of Useful Things</cite> <li><cite>Invention by Design</cite> </ul> <li>Pool, <cite>Beyond Engineering</cite> <li>Nathan Rosenberg, <cite>Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics</cite> <li>Peter Rowe, <cite>Design Thinking</cite> <li>Ross Thomson, <cite>Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age: Technological Innovation in the United States, 1790--1865</cite> [<a href="http://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/ecom/MasterServlet/GetItemDetailsHandler?iN=9780801891410&qty=1&viewMode=3">blurb</a>] <li>Namati&eacute; Traor&eacute;, "Networks and Rapid Technological Change: Novel Evidence from the Canadian Biotech Industry", <a hrf="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13662710500513425"><cite>Industry and Innovation</cite> <strong>13</strong> (2006): 41--68</a> <li>Thomas Woodson, <cite>Introduction to Engineering Design</cite> </ul>