The diffusion of modern, efficient technology has far-reaching consequences for the geography of economic activity, inequality and environmental quality. This article examines two popular yet highly controversial claims about the conditions most favorable to the rapid spread of new technology....

There is growing recognition that organizational innovations can have a major influence on the geography of economic activity. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms and geographic preconditions underlying their diffusion, particularly at the global level. In this article, we test a series of...

Despite their availability to firms across the world, uptake of global voluntary standards has proceeded unevenly across countries over time. In this paper we seek to provide new insights into how geography shapes these spatiotemporal variations, focusing on two leading examples of codified...

This article examines the impact of environmental regulation within countries as well as regulatory distance between countries on international technology transfer. We employ a recently-assembled dataset of automobile emission standards and corresponding data on non-resident patent filing of...

The ‘California effect' hypothesis posits that economic integration may lead to the ratcheting upwards of regulatory standards towards levels found in higher-regulating jurisdictions. Although a number of previous large sample quantitative studies have investigated such convergence dynamics...