ABSTRACT
In a series of contributions J.S.Metcalfe has considered the diffusion of innovation. It is concerned with ‘the process by which new technological forms are integrated into the economy to impose changes upon its structure …[and] with how the economic significance of a new technology changes over time’ (1988, pp. 560–561). The latter case is closely related to the analysis of the process by which new technologies partially or completely substitute for existing technologies. Therefore, it is one dimension of the problem of the transition between different economic equilibria.
