This paper considers the observational implications of social influences on adoption decisions for an environment of perfect foresight adopters. We argue that social influences can produce two observable effects: 1) discontinuities in unconditional adoption curves and 2) pattern reversals in...

The importance of new technologies derives from the fact that they spread across many different users and uses, as well as different geographic regions. The diffusion of technological improvements, across producers within a country and across international borders, is critical for long run...

The adoption and diffusion of technological knowledge is generally regarded as a key element in a country's economic success. However, as is the case with most types of information, the transfer of technological knowledge is likely to be subject to adverse selection problems. In this paper we...

Estimation of our model for a sample of 19 technologies, 21 countries, and the period 1870-1998 reveals that embodied productivity growth is large for many of the technologies in our sample. On average, increases in the variety of vintages available is a more important source of growth than the...

I discuss the concept and empirical importance of international technology diffusion from the point of view of recent work on endogenous technological change. In this literature, technology is viewed as technological knowledge. I first review the major concepts, and how international technology...

Although many developing countries have experienced growing income inequality and an increase in the relative demand for skilled workers during the 1980s, the sources of this trend remain a puzzle. This paper examines whether investment and adoption of skill-biased technology have contributed to...

We survey research on the relationship between technology and trade. We begin with the old literature, which treated the state of technology as exogenous and asked how changes in technology affect the trade pattern and welfare. Recent research has attempted to endogenize technological progress...

We study how opening to trade affects economic growth in a model where heterogeneous firms can choose to adopt a new technology already in use by other firms. We characterize the growth rate using summary statistics of the profit distribution--the ratio of profits between the average and...

In this paper we analyze the evidence from a large number of studies on three specific questions pertaining to R&D investment: (1) Are there diminishing returns to inventive activities? (2) What is the relationship between R&D and productivity and what are the magnitudes of the returns to a...