Technological innovation and diffusion in a context of economies of intermediate development

Abstract

The quantity of change expressed by the high occurrence of innovation and the bigger and bigger incorporation of the «immaterial» component in the economic processes are peculiar characteristics of our days. The development of media technologies has enabled to understand the strategical importance of information. This paper attempts to introduce a rapidly growing theoretical field which can be generically called economy of innovation. The first part briefly reviews the way how technology has been treated within the economic theory; in the second part, the authors outline the conceptual frame of the international diffusion of technology; at last, some topics are pointed out for reflection on the problems which the economies with a development similar to that of the Portuguese economy have to face.