General purpose technologies like IT and AI typically require complementary investments in firm-specific human and organizational capital to create value for firms. However, good measures of the stock of this IT intangible capital (ITIC) have remained elusive, as has an understanding of how the...

Formal standards codify knowledge. Next to patents representing the generation of innovative knowledge, standards can hence be used to proxy the diffusion of innovative knowledge in macroeconomic growth models. Previous work mainly investigates the positive impact of in particular patents, but...

India’s emergence in the world economy over the last decade, has often, in popular discourse, been attributed, at least to a large extent, to its sustained efforts towards technological learning and capacity building. In this paper we present an overview of India’s technological trajectory...

Intangible knowledge capital (IKC) - technology produced by workers but not embodied in them - can offset the "middle income trap" as China exhausts the benefits of international technology transfer. IKC is productivity-enhancing among Chinese enterprises - more so in domestically owned than in...

We study a dynamic general equilibrium model where innovation takes the form of the introduction new goods, whose production requires skilled workers. Innovation is followed by a costly process of standardization, whereby these new goods are adapted to be produced using unskilled labor. Our...

In a world where poor countries provide weak protection for intellectual property rights, market integration shifts technical change in favor of rich nations. Through this channel, free trade may amplify international income differences. At the same time, integration with countries where...

In a world where poor countries provide weak protection for intellectual property rights, market integration shifts technical change in favor of rich nations. Through this channel, free trade may amplify international income differences. At the same time, integration with countries where...

This paper explores the theoretical channels by which financial crises might have an impact on long-run growth. By exploiting occasionally binding financial constraints, we produce a model that generates endogenous crisis episodes featuring permanent falls in productivity, without generating...

This paper examines how strategic alliances to create and use standards affect economic growth and development. The explanation of the link from standards to economic growth and development is through the effects of standards on the incentives to perform industrial research and development...

R&D investment are an important engine of growth and development. Yet economists have often claimed under-investment, also due to the asymmetric information between inside investors and outside investors and financiers, and the consequent capital and financial market imperfections. Some recent...