Publisher's Synopsis
Three factors are believed to have led to technological advancement in the industrially mature countries. First, a shortage of labour which encouraged labour-saving inventions; secondly, the existence of discretionary purchasing power needed to sustain the markets for these inventions; and thirdly, a relatively abundant supply of capital which provided the basis of production. These three factors have been conspicuously absent in the newly developing countries and technology has thus had to be supported by a different set of economic considerations.;The author of this treatise relates technological advancement to the progressive substitution of imported elements by domestically manufactured ones, a process that requires skills as well as capital. The problem is examined at the macro level and also at the micro level where firms are shown to incorporate the shadow prices of foreign exchange in their production function.
