The importance of new technologies derives from the fact that they spread across many different users and uses, as well as different geographic regions. The diffusion of technological improvements, across producers within a country and across international borders, is critical for long run...

We present a tractable model for the analysis of the relationship between economic growth and the intensive and extensive margins of technology adoption. At the aggregate level, our model is isomorphic to a neoclassical growth model. The microeconomic underpinnings of growth come from technology...

Estimation of our model for a sample of 19 technologies, 21 countries, and the period 1870-1998 reveals that embodied productivity growth is large for many of the technologies in our sample. On average, increases in the variety of vintages available is a more important source of growth than the...

This paper presents a new data set on the diffusion of about 115 technologies in over 150 countries over the last 200 years. We use this comprehensive data set to uncover general patterns of technology diffusion. Our main 5 findings are as follows: (i) Once the intensive margin is measured,...

I discuss the concept and empirical importance of international technology diffusion from the point of view of recent work on endogenous technological change. In this literature, technology is viewed as technological knowledge. I first review the major concepts, and how international technology...

We use data on imports of computer equipment for a large sample of countries between 1 970 and 1990 to investigate the determinants of computer-technology adoption. We find strong evidence that computer adoption is associated with higher levels of human capital and with manufacturing trade...

We develop a Ricardian model to explore the role of trade in spreading the benefits of" innovation. The theory delivers an equation for bilateral trade that gravity specification, but identifies underlying parameters of technology. We estimate the" equation using trade in manufactures among the...

Investment in research and development (R&D) affects a country's total factor productivity. Recently new theories of economic growth have emphasized this link and have also identified a number of channels through which a country's R&D affects total factor productivity of its trade partners....

In this paper we analyze the evidence from a large number of studies on three specific questions pertaining to R&D investment: (1) Are there diminishing returns to inventive activities? (2) What is the relationship between R&D and productivity and what are the magnitudes of the returns to a...

Much recent work has suggested that endogenous technological change tends to reinforce the position of the leading nations. Yet from time to time this leadership role shifts. We suggest a mechanism that explains this pattern of -leapfrogging- as a response to occasional major changes in...