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The Diffusion of Mature Technologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

George F. Ray
George F. Ray*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
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Extract

The National Institute studied the diffusion of new technologies more than ten years ago: our first report on this subject was published in 1969 followed by a major book. The purpose of the earlier studies was to analyse the introduction and diffusion of major postwar process innovations in several industrial countries, the factors which facilitate or hinder the adoption of the then new techniques, the pattern of diffusion and the influences to which it is subject. The analysis was based on the situation at the end of the 1960s. Since then the processes, which were then relatively new, have matured. In 1982 we started a new project in order to assess and analyse their diffusion in a later phase.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 106 , November 1983 , pp. 56 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

note 1 in page 56 G. F. Ray, ‘The diffusion of new technology—a study of ten processes in nine industries’, National Institute Economic Review, May 1969, no. 48, pp. 40-83.

note 2 in page 56 L. Nabseth and G. F. Ray (eds.), The diffusion of new in dustrial processes—an international study, Cambridge University Press, 1974.

note 3 in page 56 The new research was financed by a grant from the Anglo- German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society.

note 4 in page 56 G. F. Ray, The diffusion of mature technologies, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

note 5 in page 56 The following institutes participated: Ifo-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Munich; Industriens Utredningsinstitut (IUI), Stockholm; Bureau d'Informations et Prévisions Economi ques (BIPE), Neuilly-Paris; and Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio della Congiuntura (ISCO), Rome. We are grateful to them, as well as to the corporations and experts in the UK and abroad, for help and assistance.

Germany means West Germany throughout.

note 1 in page 57 The per cent share of NCMTs in the total national machine tool park was 2.2 in Germany, 1.6 in France, 3.0 in Sweden (all 1980), 2.2 in Italy (1981) and 2.6 in the UK (1982). The definition and coverage of statistics vartes by country; adopting US and Japanese practices the UK share in 1982 has been estimated as 3.3 per cent and compares with 2.8 per cent in Japan (1981) and 1.9 per cent in the US (1976/8). (The Survey of Machine Tools in Britain, Metalworking Production 1983. page 15.)

note 1 in page 58 W. E. G. Salter, Productivity and Technical Change, Cambridge University Press, 1960. Salter's best practice is the most up-to-date technique at each date, having regard to both economic and technical conditions and yielding minimum costs in terms of the production function and relative factor prices. Graphically represented, plants with best practice techniques constitute the head of the diagram whilst other plants, in declining order of efficiency, constitute the tail, with the least efficient ones at the end