Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Growth is rare historically, with short expansions interspersed with long periods of stasis. We examine how well this can be explained by a general class of Schumpeterian growth models that treat development as a progress through a space of commodities, from simple to more complex goods. This process of sequential innovation in a partially ordered network of commodities is called linkage formation. The central result of this article is that Schumpeterian growth models exhibit generic threshold behavior. Below a critical probability of linkage formation, development gradually ceases. Above the critical probability, innovation continues with probability one. Copyright 2001 by Kluwer Academic Publishers