Localized Technological Change and Unemployment in the Global Economy: a Schumpeterian approach

This paper develops a Schumpeterian approach to analyse the interaction between unemployment and localized technological change in a global competitive process. The model predicts that the present levels of unemployment are caused by a combination of three factors: (i) the localized character of the wave of information and communication technology generated in the more advanced countries which, because of this, it is characterized by a factor mix appropriate to economic systems where there is an abundance of capital and a relative scarcity of labour; (ii) the strong and rapid dynamic decline of competitive advantages and quasi-rents, based on the introduction of new information and communication technology; (iii) the strong international competitive pressure from countries with lower wage levels and a greater capability to host the affiliates of multinational companies and to imitate the new information and communication technologies developed in the innovative countries. The results of the empirical analysis, for the OECD countries in the years 1990–92, suggest that a country's competitiveness and therefore its share of total world demand and employment is mostly, if not exclusively, determined by its innovative capacity. Wage levels alone cannot, even when they fall, at least in relative terms, re-establish conditions of full employment: efficiency wages are an important complementary factor in building the innovation capacity of a country.