Imports of goods that embody foreign technology raise a country's output directly, as inputs into production, and indirectly, through reverse-engineering of these goods which contributes to domestic imitation and innovation. This paper first quantifies spillovers from high technology imports...

This paper revisits the question of gains from trade in a dynamic setting from the perspective of an R&D based growth model of technological diffusion. The transition paths, as well as steady-state growth paths, are analyzed for a developed and a developing nation trading in intermediate and...

An endogenous growth model is developed demonstrating both static and dynamic gains from trade for developing nations due to the beneficial effects of trade on imitation and technological diffusion. The concept of learning-to-learn in both imitative and innovative processes is incorporated into...

I show that malaria misdiagnosis, common in resource-poor settings, decreases the expected effectiveness of an important new therapy - since only a fraction of treated individuals have malaria - and reduces the rate of learning via increased noise. Using pilot program data from Tanzania, I...

I show that malaria misdiagnosis, common in resource-poor settings, decreases the expected effectiveness of an important new therapy – since only a fraction of treated individuals have malaria – and reduces the rate of learning via increased noise. Using pilot program data from Tanzania, I...

This paper studies the adoption and diffusion of a product innovation in a duopoly market. Firms are asymmetric, and learning is endogenously determined by the volume of sales. In equilibrium, both high- and low-quality firms may lead adoption, and first-movers are often uniquely determined by...

Technological choice by a principal is added to the standard moral hazard model. It is argued that this is an important margin of choice. Two examples are provided in which the choice has significant implications. In one it drastically simplifies the optimal contract. In the other, it...