How has innovative and competitive behavior in computing and Internet markets evolved over the past half-century? In the first section of this review, I discuss these questions in light of six topics: the limited role for technology push; the diffusion of general-purpose technologies; the...

The authors test opposing theories on how urban locations influenced the diffusion of Internet technology. They find evidence that, controlling for industry, participation in the Internet is more likely in rural areas than in urban areas. Nevertheless, talk of the dissolution of cities is...

We examine the relationship between the diffusion of advanced internet technology and the geographic concentration of invention, as measured by patents. First, we show that patenting became more concentrated from the early 1990s to the early 2000s and, similarly, that counties that were leaders...

Researchers have long hypothesized that spillovers from government, university, and private company R&D contribute to economic growth, but these contributions may be difficult to measure when they take a non-pecuniary form. The growth of networking devices and the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s...

The innovations that became the foundation for the Internet originate from two eras that illustrate two distinct models for accumulating innovations over the long haul. The pre-commercial era illustrates the operation of several useful non-market institutional arrangements. It also illustrates a...

How much economic value did the diffusion of broadband create? We provide benchmark estimates for 1999 to 2006. We observe $39 billion of total revenue in Internet access in 2006, with broadband accounting for $28 billion of this total. Depending on the estimate, households generated $20 to $22...

How did the diffusion of the internet affect regional wage inequality? We examine the relationship between business use of advanced internet technology and local variation in US wage growth between 1995 and 2000. We find no evidence that the internet contributed to regional wage convergence....

Economic experiments yield lessons to firms that can be acquired only through market experience. Economic experiments cannot take place in a laboratory; scientists, engineers, or marketing executives cannot distill equivalent lessons from simply building a prototype or interviewing potential...