Empirical Regularities and Dynamics of Technological Change in Alternative Energy Technologies: Towards Building a Predictive Model

Are there robust empirical regularities in the manner and rate of technological change? Can these regularities inform the construction of predictive models of technological change? These are the principal questions animating the working group, which is a follow-up to a month-long workshop held last Summer at SFI (with support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford University and SFI) on “Getting Inside the Black Box: Technological Evolution and Economic Growth.” The workshop considered the endogenous dynamics of technological change by focusing on the on the structure, interaction and evolution of technologies. The working group will elaborate on themes developed during the workshop and will integrate several empirical and modeling efforts  undertaken during the Fall of 2013 and Spring of 2014 as part of the DOE-funded research project. The members of the working group will engage with SFI resident faculty, and a small group of invited researchers in methodological discussion and examinations of case-studies.