Winners and losers of technological innovation

Journal title QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Emanuele Castelli
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2023/117
Language Italian Pages 22 P. 185-206 File size 84 KB
DOI 10.3280/QUA2023-117008
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Building on the insights of Joseph A. Schumpeter, this paper proposes a “macro” reading that articulates innovation, economic cycles and hegemonic cycles, with the aim of describing the dynamics triggered by development and their impact on labor. According to Schumpeter, big innovations always produce “creative destruction” that makes, on the one hand, new technologies desirable but generates, on the other hand, resistance and opposition, i.e. “winners” and “losers” of technological innovation. It is the working fate of the latter that states must consider when deciding to embrace innovation. These dynamics, which unfold their effects within states, are also responsible for the emergence of “leading-sectors” of the economy, which in turn allow some states to emerge over others in the international system. From this perspective, it is the state that is best able to exploit the benefits of innovation that shapes the global system, becoming the hegemon, shaping it to its own desires and succeeding in building a system of alliances with states that follow its direction.

Keywords: innovation, economic development, leading-sectors, hegemony.

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Emanuele Castelli, I vincenti e i perdenti dell’innovazione tecnologica in "QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO" 117/2023, pp 185-206, DOI: 10.3280/QUA2023-117008