This paper analyzes the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we equate with publicly available information. Decentralized control, on the other hand, delegates authority to...

This paper investigates the relationship between product market competition and innovation. We find strong evidence of an inverted-U relationship using panel data. We develop a model where competition discourages laggard firms from innovating but encourages neck-and-neck firms to innovate....

This paper develops a general equilibrium model of technological adoption in an economy populated by 'satisficing' entrepreneurs whose main objective is to minimise innovative effort while keeping the firm alive. In such an economy, product market competition is shown to have a stimulating...

We examine the contribution of human capital to economy-wide technological improvements through the two channels of innovation and imitation. We develop a theoretical model showing that skilled labor has a higher growth-enhancing effect closer to the technological frontier under the reasonable...

The question of how inequality is generated and how it reproduces over time has been a major concern for social scientists for more than a century. Yet the relationship between inequality and the process of economic development is far from being well understood. In particular, for the past forty...

Many economists have argued that the observed increase in wage inequality in developed economies over the past 30 years is due to skill-biased technical progress. In this paper we put forward a somewhat different technology-based argument, namely that the increased inequality was caused by...