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Technology And The Global Economy, Jonathan Eaton, Samuel Kortum
Technology And The Global Economy, Jonathan Eaton, Samuel Kortum
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Interpreting individual heterogeneity in terms of probability theory has proved powerful in connecting behaviour at the individual and aggregate levels. Returning to Ricardo's focus on comparative efficiency as a basis for international trade, much recent quantitative equilibrium modeling of the global economy builds on particular probabilistic assumptions about technology. We review these assumptions and how they deliver a unified framework underlying a wide range of static and dynamic equilibrium models.
Consumer Guilt And Sustainable Choice: Environmental Impact Of Durable Goods Innovation, K. Sudhir, Ramesh Shankar, Yuan Jin
Consumer Guilt And Sustainable Choice: Environmental Impact Of Durable Goods Innovation, K. Sudhir, Ramesh Shankar, Yuan Jin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The paper develops a modeling framework to study how sustainability interventions impact consumer adoption of durable goods innovation, firm profit and environmental outcomes in equilibrium. Our two period model with forward looking consumers and a monopoly firm introducing an innovation in the second period accommodates three key features: (1) it builds on the psychology literature linking reactive and anticipatory guilt to consumers’ environmental sensitivity on initial purchase and upgrade decisions; (2) it disentangles environmental harm over the product life into that arising from product use and dumping at replacement; and (3) it clarifies how a taxonomy of innovations (function, fashion …
From Imitation To Innovation: Where Is All That Chinese R&D Going?, König D. König, Kjetil Storesletten, Zheng Song, Fabrizio Zilibotti
From Imitation To Innovation: Where Is All That Chinese R&D Going?, König D. König, Kjetil Storesletten, Zheng Song, Fabrizio Zilibotti
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We construct a model of rm dynamics with heterogenous productivity and distortions. The productivity distribution evolves endogenously as the result of the decisions of firms seeking to upgrade their productivity over time. Firms can adopt two strategies toward that end: imitation and innovation. The theory bears predictions about the evolution of the productivity distribution. We structurally estimate the stationary state of the dynamic model targeting moments of the empirical distribution of R&D and TFP growth in China during the period 2007-2012. The estimated model ts the Chinese data well. We compare the estimates with those obtained using data for Taiwan …
Three Essays On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions Essay 3: The Economy With Innovation, Externalities And Context, Martin Shubik
Three Essays On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions Essay 3: The Economy With Innovation, Externalities And Context, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This essay is the third of three. The first is nontechnical and in part autobiograhpical describing the evolution of my approach to developing a microeconomic theory of money and.financial institutions. The second essay was devoted to a more formal sketch of a closed economic exchange system with no other externalities beyond money and markets. This essay builds on the existence of monetary exchange but also context, and active government with nonsymmetric information and many externaties indicate that the views of Keynes, Hayek and Schumpeter are all consistent with the next stages of complexity as the logic requires many different arrays …
Three Lectures On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions: Lecture 1: A Nontechnical Overview, Martin Shubik
Three Lectures On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions: Lecture 1: A Nontechnical Overview, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This is a nontechnical retrospective paper on a game theoretic approach to the theory of money and financial institutions. The stress is on process models and the reconciliation of general equilibrium with Keynes and Schumpeter’s approaches to non-equilibrium dynamics.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions: Essay 1: A Nontechnical Overview, Martin Shubik
Three Essays On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions: Essay 1: A Nontechnical Overview, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This is a nontechnical retrospective paper on a game theoretic approach to the theory of money and financial institutions. The stress is on process models and the reconciliation of general equilibrium with Keynes and Schumpeter’s approaches to non-equilibrium dynamics.
Innovation And Equilibrium?, Martin Shubik
Innovation And Equilibrium?, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
A discussion is given of the problems involved in the formal modeling of the innovation process. The link between innovation and finance is stressed. The nature of how the circular flow of funds is broken and the role of finance in evaluation and control is discussed.
Competitive Experimentation With Private Information, Giuseppe Moscarini, Francesco Squintani
Competitive Experimentation With Private Information, Giuseppe Moscarini, Francesco Squintani
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We study a winner-take-all R&D race where firms are privately informed about the uncertain arrival rate of the invention. Due to the interdependent-value nature of the problem, the equilibrium displays a strong herding effect that distinguishes our framework from war-of-attrition models. Nonetheless, equilibrium expenditure in R&D is sub-optimal when the planner is sufficiently impatient. Pessimistic firms prematurely exit the race, so that the expected discounted amount of R&D activity is inefficiently low. This result stands in contrast to the overinvestment in research that is typical of winner-take-all R&D races without private information. We conclude that secrecy in R&D inefficiently slows …
Schumpeterian Profits In The American Economy: Theory And Measurement, William D. Nordhaus
Schumpeterian Profits In The American Economy: Theory And Measurement, William D. Nordhaus
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The present study examines the importance of Schumpeterian profits in the United States economy. Schumpeterian profits are defined as those profits that arise when firms are able to appropriate the returns from innovative activity. We first show the underlying equations for Schumpeterian profits. We then estimate the value of these profits for the non-farm business economy. We conclude that only a miniscule fraction of the social returns from technological advances over the 1948-2001 period was captured by producers, indicating that most of the benefits of technological change are passed on to consumers rather than captured by producers.
The Financing Of Innovation: Learning And Stopping, Dirk Bergemann, Ulrich Hege
The Financing Of Innovation: Learning And Stopping, Dirk Bergemann, Ulrich Hege
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper considers the financing of a research project under uncertainty about the time of completion and the probability of eventual success. The uncertainty about future success gradually diminishes with the arrival of addtional funding. The entrepreneur controls the funds and can divert them. We distinguish between relationship financing, meaning that the entrepreneur’s allocation of the funds is observable, and arm’s length financing, where it is unobservable. We find that equilibrium funding stops altogether too early relative to the efficient stopping time in both financing modes. We characterize the optimal contracts and equilibrium funding decisions. The financial constraints will typically …
The Financing Of Innovation: Learning And Stopping, Dirk Bergemann, Ulrich Hege
The Financing Of Innovation: Learning And Stopping, Dirk Bergemann, Ulrich Hege
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper considers the financing of a research project under uncertainty about the time of completion and the probability of eventual success. We distinguish between two financing modes, namely relationship financing, where the allocation decision of the entrepreneur is observable, and arm’s length financing, where it is unobservable. We find that equilibrium funding stops altogether too early relative to the efficient stopping time in both financing modes. The rate at which funding is released becomes tighter over time under relationship financing, and looser under arm’s length financing. The trade-off in the choice of financing modes is between lack of commitment …
Entry And Innovation In Vertically Differentiated Markets, Dirk Bergemann, Juuso Välimäki
Entry And Innovation In Vertically Differentiated Markets, Dirk Bergemann, Juuso Välimäki
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper analyzes the optimal entry into experience goods markets with vertically differentiated buyers. We consider the case where the value of the new product is imperfectly known, but common to all buyers (common values) as well as the case where the quality is different across buyers (private values). We distinguish between new products that are improvements to existing products and new products that are substitutes. Different types of products have qualitatively distinct diffusion paths. Improvements are introduced slowly relative to the full information case, while substitutes are introduced more aggressively. The slow entry strategy is associated with increasing supply …
Market Innovation And Entrepreneurship: A Knightian View, Truman F. Bewley
Market Innovation And Entrepreneurship: A Knightian View, Truman F. Bewley
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Stimulated by Frank Knight’s work, “Risk, Uncertainty and Profit,” I present a theory of innovation based on what I term Knightian decision theory. This theory includes a concept of uncertainty aversion, a behavioral property that makes people reluctant to undertake new unevaluatable risks. This aversion is compounded when individuals are obliged to cooperate in undertaking risks. The theory leads directly to the conclusion that innovation in business is the natural domain of individual investors with unusually low levels of uncertainty aversion. Also, it should be difficult to innovate new markets for insurance of unevaluatable risks, for the success of a …
Appropriating The Returns From Industrial R&D, Richard C. Levin, Alvin K. Klevorick, Richard R. Nelson, Sidney G. Winter
Appropriating The Returns From Industrial R&D, Richard C. Levin, Alvin K. Klevorick, Richard R. Nelson, Sidney G. Winter
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
In this paper, we describe the results of an inquiry into the nature of appropriability conditions in over one hundred manufacturing industries, and we discuss how this information has been and might be used to cast light on important issues in the economics of innovation and public policy. Our data, derived from a survey of high-level R&D executives, are informed opinions about the nature of an industry’s technological and economic environment rather than quantitative measures of inputs and outputs.