This paper combines representative worker-level data that cover time-varying job-level task characteristics of an economy over a long time span with sector-level bilateral trade data for merchandize and services. We carefully create longitudinally consistent workplace characteristics from the...

This paper develops a model of repeated innovation with knowledge spillovers. The model's novel feature is that firms compete on two dimensions: 1) product quality or cost, where one firm's innovation ultimately spills over to other firms; and 2) distribution costs, where there are no spillovers...

Product availability impacts many industries such as transportation, events, and retail, yet little empirical evidence documents the importance of stocking decisions for firm profits, vertical relationships, or consumers. We conduct several experiments, exogenously removing top-selling products...

The trickle of business method patents issued by the United States Patent Office became a flood after the State Street Bank decision in 1998. Many scholars, both legal and economic, have critiqued both the quality of these patents and the decision itself. This paper discusses the likely impact...

Digitization raises a variety of important academic and managerial questions around firm strategies and public policies for the content industries, with many of these questions influenced by the erosion of copyright caused by Internet file-sharing. At the same time, digitization has created many...

We analyze the financial performance of a hypothetical portfolio of 120 mRNA vaccine candidates in the preclinical stage targeting 11 emerging infectious diseases. We calibrate the simulation parameters with input from domain experts in mRNA technology and an extensive literature review. We find...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to examine the role of information technology when intermediaries facilitate the origination and distribution of assets given information asymmetry. Information technology measures the informativeness of asset-quality signals received by...

How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source software, an unpriced commodity in...

The patterns of production underlying the recent rise of global value chains (GVCs) have become increasingly complex. NAFTA supply chains, for example, are now deeply integrated: Using Mexican customs data, I find that exports to the U.S. use a much higher share of American inputs than exports...

I offer an overview of some key conceptual aspects associated with the rise of global value chains (GVCs). I outline a series of alternative interpretations and definitions of what the rise of GVCs entails, and I trace the implications of these alternative conceptualizations for the measurement...