Inefficiency in the U.S. health care system has often been characterized as quot;flat of the curvequot; spending providing little or no incremental value. In this paper, we draw on macroeconomic models of diffusion and productivity to better explain the empirical patterns of outcome improvements...

Scholars have long noted the significant impact of general purpose technologies (GPTs) on the economy. However, limited attention has been paid to exploring how they are employed to generate inventions in downstream sectors (crossover inventions), and what factors may facilitate such diffusion....

Building on Eaton and Kortum's (2002) model of Ricardian trade, Alvarez and Lucas (2005) calculate that a small country representing 1% of the world's GDP experiences a gain of 41% as it goes from autarky to frictionless trade with the rest of the world. But the gains from openness, which...

U.S. county data for the last 20 or 30 years show that manufacturing employment has been deconcentrating. In contrast, the service sector exhibits concentration in counties with intermediate levels of employment. This paper presents a theory where local sectoral growth is driven by technological...

A model is proposed to describe the evolution of real GDPs in the world economy that is intended to apply to all open economies. The five parameters of the model are calibrated using the Sachs-Warner definition of openness and time-series and cross-section data on incomes and other variables...

The rate of university patenting increased dramatically during the 1980s. To what extent did the knowledge flow patterns associated with public sector inventions change as university administrators and faculty seemingly became more commercially oriented? Using a Herfindahl-type measure of patent...

We explore the determinants of research specialization across countries and its consequences for relative wages. Using a dynamic Ricardian model we examine the effects of faster international technology diffusion and lower trade barriers on the incentive to innovate. In the absence of any...

We develop and estimate a model where technology diffusion depends on the level of productivity embodied in capital and where this is, in turn, determined by two key mechanisms: the rate at which the quality embodied in new technology vintages increases (embodiment) and the gains from varieties...

This paper explores whether lobbies slow down technology diffusion. To answer this question, we exploit the differential effect of various institutional attributes that should affect the costs of erecting barriers when the new technology has a technologically close predecessor but not otherwise....

We argue that takeovers have played a major role in speeding up the diffusion of new technology. The role that they play is similar to that of entry and exit of firms. We focus on and compare two periods: 1890-1930 during which electricity and the internal combustion engine spread through the...