In this paper I emphasize the contribution of technical change towards productivity growth in explaining the relative East Germany-West Germany performance during the post-world war II era 1955-95.

In this paper, I analyze recent findings by Coe and Helpman (1995) of trade-related international R&D spillovers. I show generally that randomly created bilateral trade shares also give rise to large estimated international R&D spillovers; often, in fact, to larger estimated spillover effects...

This paper studies the role of trade, both domestically as well as internationally, as a channel of technology transmission.

Examining the accuracy of the monopolistic competition theory's predictions for import volumes, we assess whether this theory accounts for the empirical success of the gravity equation. Since certain factor-endowment based theories have the same prediction for import volumes, we employ...

We present a model of R&D-driven growth which predicts that technology, in form of product designs and created through R&D investments, is transmitted to other domestic and foreign sectors by being embodied in differentiated intermediate goods. Empirical results are presented employing data from...

This paper presents a model of international trade in differentiated intermediate goods. Because intermediates are invented through costly R&D investments, employing foreign intermediates implies sharing the return to R&D with the inventor country. I first derive a relation of how domestic...

We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) between the years of 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier work, our results suggest that FDI leads to substantial productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI...

The paper introduces a framework for studying the hierarchy of growth factors, from deep to more immediate. The specific setting we examine is 18th and 19th century Germany, when institutional changes introduced by reforms and transportation improvements converged to create city growth. We...

This paper surveys what is known about the extent of international technology diffusion and channels through which technology spreads. Productivity differences explain much of the variation in incomes across countries, and technology plays a key role in determining productivity. The pattern of...

Why did Western Europe industrialize first? An influential view holds that its exceptionally well-functioning markets supported with a certain set of institutions provided the incentives to make investments needed to industrialize. This paper examines this hypothesis by comparing the actual...