Vintage capital

This article reviews the early vintage capital literature of the 1960s, and identifies the factors behind the revival of topic from the 1990s. The fundamental properties of the seminal vintage capital growth models are disentangled, and the origins of the associated controversy on the importance of embodied technical progress are evoked. The recent revival of this literature is analysed with special emphasis on the rising support for the Solowian view of investment following Gordon's 1990 fundamental work on the price of durable goods, and the emergence of a new vintage human capital literature devoted to some fundamental economic growth issues.