"Real explanations will come from understanding the sources of scientific and technological advances and from identifying the incentives and circumstances that brought them about and that facilitated their implementation and diffusion. Explanation must come from comprehending the historical detail from finding ways of generalizing (modeling?) the patterns that may be discernible in the welter in it. This leads us back to the study of the history of science and technology and the diffusion of their products, a topic that we have left largely to others. But if we want to understand better what we are talking about, where technical change is actually coming from, we will need to study history. There is no free lunch in economic research either"
Griliches