This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

New course for 2027/28 academic session.

How to apply: Any external student must have successfully completed EC400 or EC451 in September and/or have approval from the Department of Economics.

Deadline for application: Please apply as soon as possible after the opening of course selection for all courses.

For queries, contact: Econ.msc@lse.ac.uk

Pre-requisites:

Students must have completed EC451 or EC400 before taking this course.

Additional requisites:

Students should also have completed courses in intermediate level microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics.

In exceptional circumstances, students may take this course without EC400 provided they meet the necessary requirements and have received approval from the course conveners, the MSc Economics Programme Director and their own Programme Director. Contact the Department of Economics for more information (econ.msc@lse.ac.uk) regarding entry to this course.

This course will cover topics at the forefront of the economics and economic history of technology.  Each lecture is organised around a theme, with themes changing each year to reflect debates in the scholarly community and problems in the world.  

Topics will include: technology as a driver of economic change; endogenous and directed technical change; industrial revolutions; the political and institutional determinants of technological change; the diffusion of technological change; technology and the labour market; computation and computer-based technologies; and the political implications of technology.  The course material will develop students’ theoretical and empirical skills, and capacity to think critically about role of technology in the economy and society.

20 hours of lectures and 9 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
1 hour of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Formative work will comprise of written work and student presentations held in seminars during teaching weeks.  Two pieces of work will be marked and feedback provided. 

Most reading sources will draw from a range of journal articles to be distributed at the start of the course, that will vary in line with selected themes. However, the following references may serve as an introduction to material included in the syllabus: 

• Rosenberg, Perspectives on Technology (2011);
• Mokyr, Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (1992); 
• Ruttan, Technology, Growth, and Development (2001);
• Acemoglu, “Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market” (2002);
• Aghion et al., “Lessons from Schumpeterian Growth Theory” (2015).

Exam (100%), duration: 120 minutes, reading time: 15 minutes in the Spring exam period.