Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T06:32:48.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2009

Richard H. Day
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Get access

Summary

This volume is based on a series of essays written during the last four decades. In looking it over, I find that even the oldest paper included in the collection is even more relevant today than when first published. For example, one essay observed that

invention, innovation, and diffusion of new products, new inputs, new production, marketing, and decision-making methods… are leading now, as they have in the past, to overlapping, imbalanced waves of development, to counterpoints of growth and decline as old modes of production and consumption are abandoned in favor of more competitive alternatives and as established mores give way to new patterns of living.

These facts are sometimes recognized by politicians and general commentators, but often too late to plan effective action to alleviate their social effects. The recent onset of the energy crisis underscores this fact. It seems to have been recognized long after it was in the making; little seems to have been done to prepare for it; few agree on its importance, or, conceding its importance, few agree on what to do about it.

The crisis referred to occurred in the 1970s, but the assessment made of it in that early paper could apply with equal force to the current controversy over energy, which seems to have been as little anticipated and as little understood now as the one three decades ago.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Divergent Dynamics of Economic Growth
Studies in Adaptive Economizing, Technological Change, and Economic Development
, pp. ix - xii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Preface
  • Richard H. Day, University of Southern California
  • Book: The Divergent Dynamics of Economic Growth
  • Online publication: 08 August 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511510700.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Preface
  • Richard H. Day, University of Southern California
  • Book: The Divergent Dynamics of Economic Growth
  • Online publication: 08 August 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511510700.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Richard H. Day, University of Southern California
  • Book: The Divergent Dynamics of Economic Growth
  • Online publication: 08 August 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511510700.001
Available formats
×