In very different fields of economics, economic inference and policy evaluation require economists to parametrize a production function that links measures of input factors to measures of output. While doing so, strong assumptions are implicitly made about microeconomic variables governing the...

The impact of environmental regulation on technology diffusion and innovations is studied using a unique data set of German residential buildings. We analyze how energy efficiency regulations, in terms of minimum standards, affects energy-use in newly constructed buildings and how it induces...

The shift of employment from lower to higher productive firms is an important driver for structural change and industry dynamics. We investigate this reallocation in terms of employment gains and losses from innovation. New employment created by product innovation may be offset by employment...

Local beer breweries in Burkina Faso absorb a considerable amount of urban woodfuel demand. We assess the woodfuel savings caused by the adoption of improved brewing stoves by these, mostly female owned, small enterprises and estimate the implied welfare effects through the woodfuel market on...

Using data on all bariatric surgeries performed in the state of Pennsylvania from 1995 through 2007, this paper uses logistic and OLS regressions to measure the effect of star physicians and star hospitals on the diffusion of an innovation in bariatric surgery called laparoscopic gastric bypass...

The development process and technological improvements since the industrial revolution are characterized by substantial increases in the quantity and variety of tools/machines/materials adopted in production. It is difficult to reject empirically that proliferation of tools variety is the...

Over the years, a large number of indexes of technological inefficiency have been specified, and a spate of papers has examined the properties satisfied by these indexes. This paper approaches the subject more synthetically, presenting generic results on classes of indexes and their properties....

This paper demonstrates the causal effect of new technologies on the U.S. labor market. I employ information and communications technology, and robot penetration, as two proxy for new technologies to assess the effect of automation on 795 occupations across 450 industries between 2004 and 2016....

Improving productivity among microenterprises is important, especially in low-income countries where market imperfections are pervasive, and resources are scarce. Relaxing credit constraints can increase the productivity of microenterprises. Using a field experiment involving agricultural...

This paper provides new evidence on the main characteristics of laggard firms - firms in the bottom 40% of the productivity distribution - and their potential for productivity growth. It finds that laggards are on average younger and smaller than more productive firms, and matter for aggregate...