Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions...

The purpose of the present paper is to describe the role of uncertainty and technical change in an environmental context. Which impact does ecological uncertainty have on physical and R&D investments' decisions? How are pollution trajectories modified when uncertainty is taken into account? To...

This chapter selectively surveys the literature on general purpose technologies (GPTs), focusing on incentives and aggregate growth implications. The literature on classical GPTs (steam, electricity, computers) and on classical great economic transformations (industrial revolutions, the...

How does risk or uncertainty in the productivity of research affect the growth rate of the economy? To answer this question, a model of endogenous technological change is used where sustained growth stems from intentional investments in R&D from profit-maximizing firms. The uncertainty arises...

We propose an overlapping generations framework in which life expectancyis determined endogenously by governmental health investments. As a novelty, we are able to examine the feedback effects between life expectancy and R&D-driven economic growth for the transitional dynamics. We find that i)...

Compulsory licensing allows governments to license patented inventions without the consent of patent owners. Intended to mitigate the potential welfare losses from enforcing foreign-owned patents, many developing countries use this policy to improve access to drugs that are covered by...

During the Second Industrial Revolution and subsequently, it is widely believed that Black Americans contributed disproportionately little to the economic development of the United States, especially in comparison to European Americans and immigrants from Europe. Yet, Black Americans tended to...

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between dirty (internal combustion engine) and clean (e.g. electric and hybrid) patents across 80 countries over several decades. We show that firms...