Two different approaches have been proposed to explain the rise and decline of industries. Schumpeter (1942/1947) argued that creative destruction was a necessary part of innovation. Rybczynski (1955) demonstrated in a two-factor model that an increase in one factor leads to a decrease in output...

Overs the past millennium, each of the three centuries of most rapid demographic growth in the West Coincided with the diffusion of a new communications technology. This paper examines the hypothesis of Harold Innis (1894-1952) that there is two-way feeback between such innovations and economic...