Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium - Riccardo Leoncini (Economics)

The last century witnessed the highest rate of technological progress in history, which is responsible for the structural dynamics of the economies. In turn, while rewarding those who can take advantage of it, technological change is one of the main elements determining the patterns of income distribution.

Technological change has both a positive and a negative impact on inequality. As Schumpeter first noted, innovative activity results in waves of creative destruction, which creates new monopolies due to the innovator’s breakthroughs and, at the same time, also creates incentives for waves of imitators that will erode the innovators’ rents.

The main characteristics of innovative activity that will be discussed in the talk are the following: innovation is based on ‘immaterial’ flows of knowledge that spill over to the whole economy, and the main element determining the rate and direction of technological learning in the economy is the institutional set-up.