Economists, in particular Bresnahan and Trajtenberg (1995), have recently drawn attention to the importance of generic or general purpose technologies (GPTs) and their significance for economic growth. An interesting part of this research identies coordination problems in the introduction of...

How do firms differ, and why do they di.er even within narrowly defined industries? Using evidence from six high-tech, manufacturing industries covering a 24-year period, we show that di.erences in sales, materials, labor costs and capital across firms can largely be summarized by a single,...

We develop a parsimonious model of innovating firms rich enough to confront firm-level evidence. It captures the dynamic behavior of individual heterogeneous firms, describes the evolution of an industry with simultaneous entry and exit, and delivers a general equilibrium model of technological...