How "General purpose technologies" trigger long waves of economic development and thereby generate diversities of innovation

Long-term structural change is influenced by the emergence and dissemination of general purpose technologies (GPT) that generate "long waves" of economic development. The paper shows that the long-wave dynamics is characterized by major diversities of innovation and that economic agents and policy makers strongly influence an economy's ability to benefit from new technologies. Information and communication technology as the dominant GPT of the current long wave and other, emerging technologies that possibly act as a GPT of the next long wave (e.g. Industry 4.0) are put into the long wave-context.