Economic development, variety and employment

This paper studies qualitative change taking place during economic development. In the model presented qualitative change is created by the emergence of new sectors, each of which produces an output that is different from other sectors. A system with a variable number of sectors is simulated. The model predicts that under given conditions the evolution of a sector tends to follow a life cycle in both the number of firms and in terms of employment. The cyclical behavior is determined by the balance between the increasing intensity of competition, saturating demand and increasing returns to adoption. In its present form the model is a simplified representation of the economic system, but several improvements can be introduced in order to increase its degree of realism. (author's abstract)