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Technology shock

sudden changes in technology that significantly affect economic, social, political or other outcomes

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ16963850
Source-derived summary

Technology shocks are sudden changes in technology that significantly affect economic, social, political or other outcomes. In economics, the term technology shock usually refers to events in a macroeconomic model, that change the production function. Usually this is modeled with an aggregate production function that has a scaling factor.

Normally reference is made to positive (i.e., productivity enhancing) technological changes, though technology shocks can also be contractionary. The term “shock” connotes the fact that technological progress is not always gradual – there can be large-scale discontinuous changes that significantly alter production methods and outputs in an industry, or in the economy as a whole. Such a technology shock can occur in many different ways. For example, it may be the result of advances in science that enable new trajectories of innovation, or may result when an existing technological alternative improves to a point that it overtakes the dominant design, or is transplanted to a new domain. It can also occur as the result of a shock in another system, such as when a change in input prices dramatically changes the price/performance relationship for a technology, or when a change in the regulatory environment significantly alters the technologies permitted (or demanded) in the market. Numerous studies have shown that technology shocks can have a significant effect on investment, economic growth, labor productivity, collaboration patterns, and innovation.

Positive technology shock

The Industrial Revolution is an example of a positive technology shock.

Editorial summary

“Technology shock” enters the record as sudden changes in technology that significantly affect economic, social, political or other outcomes. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Technology, shock and sudden can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current 239-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Technology, shock and sudden.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Technology shock” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Technology, shock and sudden provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16963850. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Technology shock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.