National Externalities and Path-dependence in Technological Change: An Empirical Test

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the relevance of the hypothesis of increasing returns and path-dependence in technological development by looking at its implications on the evolution of the technological specialisation profiles of advanced countries. A recontracting process is used to formalise the idea that, when national externalities are strong, countries should display the tendency to specialise in selected technologies. No evidence of such tendency towards increasing specialization is found in the data.