I generalize a benchmark model of directed technical change to allow innovations and factors of production (here energy resources) to be substitutes or complements. I show that a dominant sector is forever locked-in under substitutability but researchers' market incentives can drive a transition...

I generalize a benchmark model of directed technical change in order to reconcile it with the historical experience of energy transitions. I show that the economy becomes increasingly locked-in to the dominant sector when machines and energy resources are substitutes, but a transition away from...

Increases in input prices are often cited as the impetus to the investment in resource conserving technologies. We demonstrate that in addition to price changes, adoption of new production technologies may be triggered by discrete events, such as generational transitions, that change the...