The 2008 version of the SNA has recommended capitalization of R&D expenditures. To implement this recommendation, we need to determine the depreciation rate of R&D capital. In this paper, we develop a simple model, based on a production function method that allows for monopolistic competition,...

This paper combines flexible functional form techniques, which provide local approximations to indirect preferenc es with respect to prices and incomes, with spline techniques that provide global approximations with respect to real income. The main technical problem is that real income or...

There is policy interest in factoring productivity growth into technical progress and returns to scale components. Our approach uses exact index number methods to reduce the parameters that must be estimated, and allows us to exploit the cross-sectional dimension of plant-level panel data. We...

This paper treats an innovation as the sudden appearance of a new tech nology that can either produce a new good or existing goods more effi ciently than existing technologies. Prices of internationally-traded goods are regarded as fixed as are the economy's endowments of primar y factors. Under...

Systems of business and personal taxation in most Western economies are not efficient. The paper discusses efficiency losses due to (1) tariffs and sales taxes; (2) the nonneutral treatment of business durable inputs; (3) differential rates of business income taxation; and (4) the taxation of...