European coal production underwent a period of dramatic increase from the early nineteenth century to 1913. A consensus exists, however, for a depiction of the coal industry as, to a high degree, technologically stagnant throughout the long nineteenth century. Macro-inventions, or general...

The last decades have witnessed a revolution in manufacturing production characterized by increasing technology adoption and a strong expansion of international trade. Simultaneously, the income distribution has exhibited both polarization and concentration among the richest. Combining datasets...

We examine whether there is a tradeoff between employing internal (firm) resources and purchased external (local) resources in process innovation. We draw on a rich data set of Internet investments by 86,879 U.S. establishments to examine decisions to invest in advanced Internet technology. We...

This paper uses a gravity framework to investigate the effects of distance as well as subnational and national borders in knowledge spillovers. Drawing on the NBER Patent Citations Database, we examine patent citations data at metropolitan level within the U.S. and the 38 largest patent-cited...

We develop a variation of the Grossman-Helpman Protection for Saleʺ model, where organized groups, representing various sectors of the economy, influence government policy. In particular, this paper focuses on the rise of food prices and a greater level of influence of a food sector lobby,...

In this paper, we address the issue of spurious correlation in the production of health in a systematic way. Spurious correlation entails the risk of linking health status to medical (and nonmedical) inputs when no links exist. This note first presents the bounds testing procedure as a method to...

Due to scarcity considerations an increase in the supply of college graduates should reduce the premium for this kind of qualification. Therefore it seems quite contradictory that a tremendous educational expansion in the USA is accompanied by rising wage dispersion (overall and between...

Market growth is driven by product innovation. Beyond functional satiation the marginal utility of product performance and variety decreases. We argue that social comparisons underlying innovation diffusion results in consumer motivations for upward assimilation toward the behavior of better...

Can stock market bubbles accelerate long term growth? Do such bubbles indicate irrational behavior? This paper studies the effect of innovation uncertainty on the concomitant time path of firm valuations, technology adoption and growth in a setting that incorporates positive network...