Long-term diffusion factors of technological development - an evolutionary model and case study

In the first part of this article, a short description of the most popular models of two competing technologies (the Fisher-Pry model and its modifications proposed by Blackman, Floyd, Sharif and Kabir) and the multi technological substitution models of Peterka and Marchetti-Nakiæenoviæ are presented. In the second section, we describe an evolutionary model of diffusion processes based on biological analogy, together with the method of its parameters’ identification using real data on technologies development. In the final sections the applications of that model to describe the real diffusion processes (namely, primary energy sources in the world energy consumption and the raw steel production in the United States) are presented. The feasibility of using the model to predict future shares of given technologies and to build alternative scenarios of future evolution of structure of the market is suggested.diffusion; substitution; evolution; simulation; s-curve; logistic curve; logistic function