Structural Economic Dynamics: Methods, Theories and Decisions

This paper discusses a taxonomy of decision-making contexts along trajectories of structural change. It will be argued that, from the point of view of decision-making under structural change, the most distinctive feature is the change in fundamental points of reference for what concerns the features of relative invariance along the dynamic trajectory being considered. Strategic decisions and behavioural patterns bring about certain outcomes (while excluding others) on the basis of specific conditions concerning technology, environment and the organizational and/or institutional set-up of any given society. The change in features of invariance may be such that the same decisions could be associated with outcomes entirely different from those that would have taken place if the structural discontinuity had not occurred.