We use a new longitudinal data set of more than 15,000 Chinese manufacturing plants to show that the direct and indirect effects of foreign direct investment on measured firm level productivity depend on a number of firm specific features and institutional factors. We find that domestic firms...

We examine a model of R&D competition and cooperation in the presence of spillovers. Unlike virtually all the literature, however, we treat these spillovers as endogenous and under the control of firms. We show that it is then essential to make a number of distinctions that are ignored in the...

Much of the dramatic change in skill and wage structure observed in recent years in the United States is believed to stem from the impact of new technology. This paper compares the changing skill strcuture of wage bills and employment in the United States with six other advanced developed...

Demand for less skilled workers decreased dramatically in the US and in other developed countries over the past two decades. We argue that pervasive skill biased technological change rather than increased trade with the developing world is the principal culprit. The pervasiveness of this...

Only a few years ago the conventional wisdom predicted that globalization would render the demise of the region as a meaningful unit of economic analysis. Yet the obsession of policy-makers around the globe to 'create the next Silicon Valley' reveals the increased importance of geographic...

Whether diversity or specialization of economic activity better promotes technological change and subsequent economic growth has been the subject of a heated debate in the economics literature. The purpose of this paper is to consider the effect of the composition of economic activity on...

It is shown that spillovers can enhance private returns to innovation if they feed back into the dynamic research of the original inventor (Internalized spillovers), but will always reduce private returns, if the original inventor does not benefit from the advancements other inventors build into...

In this Paper we carefully link knowledge flows to and from a firm’s innovation process with this firm’s investment decisions. Three types of investments are considered: investments in applied research, investments in basic research, and investments in intellectual property protection. Only...

We analyze the incentives to disclose intermediate research results. We find that despite the help that disclosure can give to a rival, the leading innovator sometimes chooses to disclose. Disclosure signals commitment to the research project, which may induce a rival to exit. With weak product...