Mobile phones and the internet have significantly affected practically all sectors of the economy, and agriculture is no exception. Building on a recent World Bank flagship report, this paper introduces a concise framework for describing the main benefits from new information and communications...

The authors present a database of indicators of innovative activity around the world since the early 1960s. The data include measures of innovation outcomes as well as variables related to innovation effort. The main indicator of innovation outputs is patents. The main variables related to...

This paper proposes a quantitative model of firm dynamics with endogenous innovation to study growth acceleration episodes triggered by reforms. The authors find that reforms removing barriers to firm entry lead to persistent growth in TFP and declining average firm size, as in the experience of...

By reducing the costs of environmental protection, technological change is important for promoting green growth. This entails both the creation of new technologies and more widespread deployment of existing green technologies. This paper reviews the literature on environmentally friendly...

This paper explores how developmental and regulatory impediments to resource reallocation limit the ability of developing countries to adopt new technologies. An efficient economy innovates quickly; but when the economy is unable to redeploy resources away from inefficient uses, technological...

This survey of the state of research on relations between health and economic development discusses first research on how development affects health and then research on how health affects development. Central assumptions include: (A) Health is produced by households, along with a number of...

The idea behind patent policies is to increase the output of commercially useful innovations by creating a transitory propertyy right that allows the inventor to appropriate part of the returns from his invention. In developing countries, two types of considerations need to be addressed. First,...

Protectionism and industrial regulation are two topics in which the interplay of politics and economics is so strong that one wonders why the intellectual merger between the two approaches in the New Political Economy has taken so long. After describing the emergence of the state in Western...

This paper reviews the empirical and theoretical literature on economic growth to examine how the four components of the climate change bill, namely mitigation, proactive (ex ante) adaptation, reactive (ex post) adaptation, and ultimate damages of climate change affect growth, especially in...

The empirical literature on finance and development suggests that countries with better developed financial systems experience faster economic growth. Financial development - as captured by size, depth, efficiency, and reach of financial systems - varies sharply around the world, with large...