Technological Change and Global Economics
The recession at the beginning of the nineties should not have surprised us, Christopher Freeman writes : economic growth follows medium and long term cycles linked to investment and the diffusion of new technology. But, he underlines, subscribing to cyclical theories need hardly incline us to fatalism. On the contrary, as Keynes taught us, periods of recession are the time for a policy of deliberate investment or permit the resumption of growth.
Instead of restrictive policies, therefore, we now need to be encouraging investment in the new technologies of information and communications which will reconnect us with the wheel of growth. Believing that Western governments are too timid, Christopher Freeman pleads energetically for a policy of stimulus by investment in the new technologies, pointing out in the process that the countries with the best performance records are those of South-East Asia which dared invest massively. Noting at the same time that national policies are no longer sufficient and that the gap between countries tends to diminish, the author insists on an international economic policy orchestrated at the level of the European Community and other international agencies (World Bank, IMF).
