This paper examines a country's incentives for intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in a global trading environment. There is a time inconsistency problem intrinsic to IPR protection: ex ante strong protection is warranted to promote innovation, but once discovery takes place there is...

This paper investigates the main postulations of the Ramp;D based growth models that innovation is created in the Ramp;D sectors and it enables sustainable economic growth, provided that there are constant returns to innovation in terms of Ramp;D. The analysis employs various panel data...

We develop a detailed model to evaluate the necessary investment requirements to achieve affordable universal broadband. The results indicate that approximately $418 billion needs to be mobilized to connect all unconnected citizens globally (targeting 40-50 GB/Month per user with 95 percent...

Many studies predict massive job losses and real wage decline as a result of the ongoing widespread automation of production, a trend that may be further aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. Yet automation is also expected to raise productivity and output. How can we share the gains from...

Advances in artificial intelligence and automation have the potential to be labor-saving and to increase inequality and poverty around the globe. They also give rise to winner-takes-all dynamics that advantage highly skilled individuals and countries that are at the forefront of technological...

The latest advancement in financial technology has posed unprecedented challenges for incumbent banks. This paper analyzes the implications of these challenges on bank competitveness, and explores the factors that could support digital advancement in banks. The analysis shows that the...

This paper investigates the role of digitialization in improving economic resilience. Using balance sheet data from 24,000 firms in 75 countries, and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that firms in industries that are more digitalized experience lower revenue losses following...

The pervasive impact of digitalization on the economy and the lack of an agreed definition makes it challenging to obtain estimates of the digital economy. Nowadays, some countries have estimated the value of the digital economy by identifying digital products or industries as defined in the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented shock to firms with adverse consequences for existing productive capacities. At the same time, digitalization has increasingly been touted as a key pathway for mitigating economic losses from the pandemic, and we expect firms facing digital...

This paper considers the implications for developing countries of a new wave of technological change that substitutes pervasively for labor. It makes simple and plausible assumptions: the AI revolution can be modeled as an increase in productivity of a distinct type of capital that substitutes...