The Long-Wave Debate: Selected Papers from an IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) International Meeting on Long-Term Fluctuations in Economic Gro

If there is not enough evidence of long waves in economic variables, the meet- ing that spawned this book brought forth some evidence to show that at least interest in these phenomena manifests a wave-like form. It is exceptional for any economist, due to the periods involved, to participate in two upswin28 of interest. Much of what is said at the beginning of a period is usually forgotten by the end. The participants of the International Meeting on Long-Term Fluc- tuations in Economic Growth: Their Causes and Consequences (held in Weimar, GDR, 10-14 June 1985}, of which this volume is the Proceedings, were privileged to hear of one such exceptional case. In his welcoming speech, Professor Jiirgen Kuczynski recalled his research, of 51 years ago, on long waves in the prices of industrial goods in the years 1820-1933, when he said "Lange Wellen aber sind nicht zu finden" [Kuczynski, Da. s Problem der la. ngen Wellen und die Entwicklung der Industriewa. ren-Preise in den Ja. hren 1. 820-1. 933 {Philographischer Verlag, Basel}]. "Since then," the speaker confessed, "I have come to acknowledge the existence of long waves, without being able to find a satisfactory explana- tion for them in my own or in other studies. " Professor Kuczynski stressed the necessity to develop a satisfactory theory for long waves, and then to establish which factors are important com- ponents of the general trend and which are not.

Table of Contents:
1. Will There Be a Fifth Kondratieff?.- 2. Problems of Model Estimation of Long-Term Economic Oscillations.- 3. Long Waves in Argentine Economic Development.- 4. The Economy as an Evolutionary Pulsator.- 5. Marx and Engels on Long Waves.- 6. Basic Innovations and the Next Long Wave of Productivity Growth: Socioeconomic Implications and Consequences.- 7. Structural Crisis as a Phase in Long-Term Economic Fluctuations.- 8. Technological Substitution and Long Waves in the USA.- 9. On the Long-Term Dynamics of the Rate of Return.- 10. Empirical Research and Forecasting Based on Hungarian and World Economic Data Series.- 11. The Economic Long Wave: Theory and Evidence.- 12. The Crucial Influence of Structural Change on Long-Term Fluctuations in Economic Growth.- 13. The Law of Value and Structural Shifts in a National Economy.- 14. Long Waves and Regional Take-Offs in Italy and Great Britain: Preliminary Investigations into Multiregional Disparities of Development.- 15. The Pathway of Dynamic Efficiency: Economic Trajectory of a Technical Revolution.- 16. Rates of Innovations and Profits in the Long Wave.- 17. Long Waves, Growth-Retarding Factors, and Paradigms of the New Upswing.- 18. Technoeconomic Succession and the Economic Long Wave.- 19. New Technology and Regional Development.- 20. Scientific and Technological Cycles: Program- and Aim-Oriented Planning.- 21. Technical Innovation, Diffusion, and Long Cycles of Economic Development.- 22. Long-Term Trends in the Belgian Money Supply, 1877–1984.- 23. Relative Prices and Technical Change: A Suggested Approach to Long Waves.- 24. A Monetary Model of Long Cycles.- 25. Catastrophe Theory Applied to the Analysis of Long Waves.- 26. Structural Change and Long-Term Fluctuations in Economic Growth.- 27. Outline of a FormalTheory of Long-Term Economic Cycles.- 28. Kondratieff and the Theory of Linear Filters.- 29. Transfers Between Industrial Branches in the Course of Schumpeter—Mensch Long Swings.- 30. Dynamic Programming of Socioeconomics and War: A Computer Experiment.- List of Participants.