Governance, Growth and Global Leadership: The Role of the State in Technological Progress, 1750-2000

This study investigates the question of what allows certain nations to rise to industrial leadership; and why some retain that pre-eminence for so much longer than others. Adopting a Schumpeterian approach to national growth, it focuses on the ability of a country to adopt technological progress and human knowledge to effect its global economic and industrial position. By comparing the experiences of Britain, France, Germany, the US and Japan over a two-hundred year period, the study draws fascinating conclusions about the causes of economic growth and the reasons for its stagnation.

Espen Moe is a political scientist and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Program for Industrial Ecology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.