Technology shocks are events in a macroeconomic

Macroeconomics

Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the whole economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy...

 model, that change the production function

Production function

In microeconomics and macroeconomics, a production function is a function that specifies the output of a firm, an industry, or an entire economy for all combinations of inputs...

. Usually this is modelled with an aggregate production function that has a scaling factor.

A technology shock affects an industry or firm's productivity

Productivity

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...

, this may be a positive shock - increasing the output for a given set of inputs, or a negative shock - decreasing the output for a given set of inputs. Negative shocks are much less common than positive shocks as technology rarely moves backwards.