An economy benefits from advances in technical frontiers only when new technology comes into general use. This paper measures the diffusion of computing equipment at a time when computing technology underwent dramatic technical improvement. These data shed light on the long lag between advances...

Sparked by concerns about their shrinking market share, 14 leading U.S. semiconductor producers, with the financial assistance of the U.S. government in the form of $100 million in annual subsidies, formed a joint R&D consortium -- Sematech -- in 1987. Using Compustat data on all U.S....

The authors test opposing theories on how urban locations influenced the diffusion of Internet technology. They find evidence that, controlling for industry, participation in the Internet is more likely in rural areas than in urban areas. Nevertheless, talk of the dissolution of cities is...

Our study provides the first census of the dispersion of Internet technology to commercial establishments in the United States. We distinguish between participation, that is, use of the Internet because it is necessary for all business (e.g., email and browsing) and enhancement, that is,...

The Producer Price Index (PPI) for the United States suggests that semiconductor prices have barely been falling in recent years, a dramatic contrast from the rapid declines reported from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. This slowdown in the rate of decline is puzzling in light of evidence that...

Research on intellectual property has focused on formal legally recorded rights that we call deeded, most often measured by granted patents. Meanwhile, other "defacto" IP (mainly purposive secrecy and natural excludability) has become more important because of the increasing closeness of...

This paper studies price and quality differences across international intermediate input suppliers. We develop price measures that account for (i) differences in product characteristics, (ii) unobserved quality differences, and (iii) pure (frictional) price dispersion across suppliers. Using...