Classical-evolutionary technological change
This event will take place in hybrid format. It will be livestreamed but not recorded.
Productivity growth enables economic expansion in the face of constraints. Reflecting its importance, there has been no dearth of theoretical explanations of productivity growth. However, the dominant approaches today, such as neoclassical endogenous growth theories or Acemoglu’s theory of directed technological change, remain unsatisfactory.

Less well-known is the classical-evolutionary theory of technological change. Following pioneering work by Duménil and Lévy, the presenter has been developing this line of research for several years. The theory offers a microeconomic explanation for cost share-induced technological change, which cleanly explains why technological change is biased towards labour productivity growth. The presenter has expanded the range of applicability of the theory and shown that the microeconomic dynamics constrain valid aggregate functional forms for the link between cost shares and productivity growth.

In this presentation, the speaker will summarise key insights from his earlier work. Among those insights is that total factor productivity growth (TFP growth) depends on cost shares through an explicit relationship. He will then share his recent work, including an approach to ‘statistical aggregation’. Using a generalised evolutionary NK model, the author will present explicit analytical results.

About the speaker:

Eric Kemp-Benedict is Associate Professor of Ecological Economics at the University of Leeds’ Sustainability Research Institute in the School of Earth and Environment. With a PhD in theoretical physics from Boston University, Eric’s research focuses on the macroeconomics of a sustainability transition. Working within post-Keynesian, structuralist and classical traditions, but viewing the economy through an ecological economics lens, he addresses questions around long-run growth, decoupling, structural change, and economic development. In addition to his work in ecological economics, he has contributed to studies on diverse topics of relevance to sustainability at national, regional, and global levels and has actively developed and applied tools and methods for participatory and study-specific sustainability analyses. He was a key contributor to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), part of the global climate scenario framework that underpins a wide range of climate studies. Until the end of 2023, he worked at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), where he directed SEI’s Asia Centre from 2013 until 2016, and the SEI US Centre’s Equitable Transitions Program from 2018 to 2023.
Date: 7 May 2025, 14:30
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Seminar Room G and online via Zoom
Speaker: Eric Kemp-Benedict (University of Leeds)
Organising department: Institute for New Economic Thinking
Organisers: Dorothy Nicholas (INET Oxford), Francois Lafond (INET Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: complexity@inet.ox.ac.uk
Host: Prof. Doyne Farmer
Part of: INET Complexity Economics Seminars
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/events/classical-evolutionary-technological-change
Audience: Public
Editors: Dorothy Nicholas, Fiona Burbage