ABSTRACT
In this chapter we aim to show how the integration of positive feedbacks and increasing
returns – via the accumulation of knowledge and competence, both internal and external
to the firm – into the framework of localised technological change can generate a
microeconomic, discontinuous growth process. Endogenous technological change, induced
by changes in relative prices and demand levels, and localised by learning processes –
learning to learn and technological externalities – contributes to a microeconomic rationale
which is able to explain the clustering of innovations and consequently discontinuous
growth (Antonelli, 1995a and 1996b).
