Essays on Structural Change, Growth and Distribution: An Evolutionary Interpretation

Since the onset of the economic discipline, the inquiry on the drivers of development has been among the crucial, albeit ever-fleeting, challenges faced by generations of scholars. Economic Development is usually defined as the sustained improvement of economic well-being encompassing not merely output growth but a wide range of productive and social transformations aimed to improve countries' quality of life. Thus, in a Polanyan sense, development studies investigate the "great transformations" necessary to set in motion the virtuous process of capabilities and knowledge accumulation essential in the uphill journey of traditional societies toward industrialisation (Cimoli et al., 2009; Polanyi, 1944). Investigating such "great transformation" through evolutionary economics' lenses means conceiving development as an intrinsically out-of-equilibrium process unbound by technical change and learning ( Dosi and Nelson, 2010; Lundvall et al., 2009; Nelson, 2008; Landes, 1969). As Schumpeter (1911) notes, the Walrasian Equilibrium world is a static system where identical quantities and qualities of goods are repeatedly produced with the same techniques and at constant costs. Once innovation is seriously introduced, we shall abandon the certainty and stability of equilibrium analysis and embrace an ever-changing landscape where uncertainty prevails, and innovation continuously drives the system out of equilibrium (Nelson, 2008). Regarding technology as the primus inter pares of this evolutionary process, this thesis investigates some of the major pitfalls faced in the catching-up process: securing a growth-promoting structural change, benefiting from the participation in international markets and assuring an efficient distribution of gains.