Tech clusters like Silicon Valley play a central role for modern innovation, business competitiveness, and economic performance. This paper reviews what constitutes a tech cluster, how they function internally, and the degree to which policy makers can purposefully foster them. We describe the...

This paper documents a shift in the nature of innovation in the information technology (IT) industry. Using comprehensive data on all IT patents granted by the USPTO from 1980-2002, we find strong evidence of a change in IT innovation that is systematic, substantial, and increasingly dependent...

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on patenting, IT, R&D and TFP using a panel of up to half a million firms over 1996-2007 across twelve European countries. We correct for endogeneity using the removal of product-specific quotas following China's entry into the World Trade...

The US has experienced a sustained increase in productivity growth since the mid-1990s, particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). This has not occurred in Europe. If the US "productivity miracle" is due to a natural advantage of being located in the US then we...

This paper examines international competition in the commercial aircraft industry. We estimate a discrete choice, differentiated products demand system for wide-body aircraft and examine the Airbus-Boeing rivalry under various assumptions on firm conduct. We then use this structure to evaluate...

Recently competition policy has become an important trade policy issue, since many policy makers now see competition policy as an important instrument to secure market access' to foreign markets. This paper analyzes this issue both from a theoretical point of view and from the review of the...

This paper studies how differences in labor market regulations shape countries' comparative advantage in the cross-border provision of labor-intensive services, using administrative data in Europe for the last two decades. I exploit exogenous variation in labor taxes and minimum wages faced by...

This paper proposes the use of consumers' preferences in formulating policies for keeping secret information about terrorist activities and threats that might compromise future security. We report the results from two surveys indicating that people have clear preferences for full disclosure of...

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) was expected to reduce health risks stemming from emissions of hazardous chemicals by increasing public pressure on polluters. However, it is a massive and complex dataset, requiring significant expertise to interpret in its raw form. State governments have...

Some argue that large platforms, such as Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft (or GAFAM), are unusual in their number, pace and concentration of technology mergers, with the potential to harm market competition. Using a unique taxonomy developed by S&P Global Market...