ABSTRACT
Technological progress has always been the basic dynamic factor of development. Labor productivity and the rate of economic growth have depended upon it in every stage of economic development. When we began our work, however, we bore in mind the twofold specific importance of technological progress throughout this period. F irst, there is the fact that the entire world is on the threshold of a new industrial revolution,
much larger in scope and entailing considerably deeper consequences than was the case with the firs t industrial revolution. Second, there is the fact that Yugoslavia is just now entering a stage of development when technological progress is indeed becoming the prevailing factor. There are many economic problems involved in all technological progress, especially in contem porary progress. Let us mention only a few for the sake of illustration: the choice of priority for branches and regions where technological reconstruction and modernization must start; a higher level of specialization and a more rapid extension of participation in the international division of labor, which is all the more im por tant when the country is small; the choice of the optimal type of technology ; the creation of large economic integrations on the basis of large tech nological systems; the choice of the optimal size of the enterprise; the training of staffs of a high professional quality; the organization of scien tific and research work as well as organiza tion for the rapid transm ission of new technolog ical and economic achievements from other countries (the la tter is especially important for sm aller countries that cannot rely to any great
degree upon their own inventions); the organiza tion of an information network in the country designed to collect and transm it rapidly all nec essary information to productive units or to self-management agencies, as well as to whole branches of production, in order to optimize their economic performance; and the like.
