ABSTRACT
In this chapter recent models of technological unemployment are discussed. These models basically differ regarding the reabsorption mechanisms they consider: studies which emphasize market forces focus on automatic mechanisms operating through price compensation effects; analyses based on the role of autonomous spending decisions by different social classes focus on non- price compensation effects—income and technology multiplier effects. It seems useful to identify at least four theoretical approaches: the neoclassical approach stressing the operation of spontaneous market forces; the classical Keynesian framework based on the dynamic relations between demand growth and productivity growth; multisectoral analyses along the lines of the more traditional input-output analysis and the more recent structural economic dynamic for subsystems; finally the new approach focusing on the transition to new technological systems and emphasizing either the diffusion process or the generation process of new technologies.
