Technischer Fortschritt und Beschäftigung in kapitaltheoretischer Sicht

Technical progress can be classified according to its effect on the average period of production. This classification intending a rehabilitation of this fundamental conception of Austrian capital theory seems to be more suggestive than the corresponding nomenclature of Hicks’ “Capital and Time’, to which it is confronted. Lengthening or shortening of the period of production implies different volumes of net saving required for the maintenance of full employment. Consequently the problem has to be viewed under short and long run aspects: Whereas the real wage rate can and - for the sake of full employment - possibly must increase in the long run it may - asa special form of saving - be bound to decrease at the beginning of the process by which the economy adapts itself to the new technique. Presumably this constellation prevails at the beginning of industrialisation processe

Theorie und Empirie aus evolutionsökonomischer Sicht Theory and Empirical Facts in the Perspective of Evolutionary Economics

According to Colander, modern economics is economics of the model. Models have to be testable, in order to get a "theory with measurement". This procedure was recently criticized vehemently by Blaug maintaining that there is only little empirical progress in the economics of today. He makes the case for evolutionary economics because the latter is considering especially entrepreneurship and innovations, topics which are neglected by economists constructing and testing models. The reason for this is, as G.M. Hodgson tells us: "By its nature, novelty defies the boundary of formalism." Evolutionary economics stressing competition and market processes focuses on innovations and institutions, but its method - because of the involved complex relations - is not confined to simple testable models. This raises the question how theory is confronted with empirical facts in evolutionary economics. Taking into consideration that evolutionary economics has a preference for "pattern predictions" in the sense of von Hayek the author pleads for a plurality of empirical methods. The important role of the search for "invariant factors" in this context is analyzed, too.Evolutionary economics, testability of economic models, pattern predictions, empirical facts, equilibrium versus disequilibrium