Why do growth rates differ? Evidence from cross-country data on private sector production
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate standard production functions with a new cross-country data set on business sector production, wages and R&D investment for a selection of 14 OECD countries including the US.
Abstract: We estimate standard production functions with a new cross-country data set on business sector production, wages and R&D investment for a selection of 14 OECD countries including the US. The data sample covers years the 1960–2004. The data suggest that growth differences can largely be explained by capital deepening and the ability to produce new technology in the form of new patents. We also find strong evidence of complementarity between patents and openness of the economy, but little evidence of increasing elasticity of substitution over time.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the interaction of private and public funding of innovative projects in the presence of adverse-selection based financing constraints is studied, and it is shown that under certain conditions, public R&D subsidies can reduce the financing constraints of technology-based entrepreneurial firms.
Abstract: We study the interaction of private and public funding of innovative projects in the presence of adverse-selection based financing constraints. Government programs allocating direct subsidies are based on ex ante screening of the subsidy applications. This selection scheme may yield valuable information to market-based financiers. We find that under certain conditions, public R&D subsidies can reduce the financing constraints of technology-based entrepreneurial firms. First, the subsidy itself reduces the capital costs related to the innovation projects by reducing the amount of market-based capital required. Second, the observation that an entrepreneur has received a subsidy for an innovation project provides an informative signal to the market-based financiers. We also find that public screening works more efficiently if it is accompanied with subsidy allocation.
210 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors published a paper on the Journal of Financial Economics (JFE), Volume 90, Issue 2, November 2008, Pages 169-196, with a focus on financial markets.
100 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the impact of bank competition on the use of collateral in loan contracts and show that the presence of collateral is more likely when bank competition is low.
Abstract: We investigate the impact of bank competition on the use of collateral in loan contracts. We analyze asymmetric information about the borrowers’ type in a Salop model in which banks choose between screening the borrower and asking for collateral. We show that the presence of collateral is more likely when bank competition is low. We then test this prediction empirically on a sample of bank loans from 70 countries. We perform logit regressions of the presence of collateral on bank competition, measured by the Lerner index. Our empirical tests corroborate the theoretical predictions that bank competition reduces the presence of collateral. These findings survive several robustness checks.
80 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors estimate a new-Keynesian DSGE model with the cost channel to assess its ability to replicate the price puzzle, i.e., the inflationary impact of a monetary policy shock typically arising in VAR analysis.
Abstract: We estimate a new-Keynesian DSGE model with the cost channel to assess its ability to replicate the price puzzle ie the inflationary impact of a monetary policy shock typically arising in VAR analysis. In order to correctly identify the monetary policy shock, we distinguish between a standard policy rate shifter and a shock to trend inflation ie the time-varying inflation target set by the Fed. While offering some statistical support to the cost channel, our estimated model clearly implies a negative inflation reaction to a tightening of monetary policy. We offer a discussion of the possible sources of mismatch between the VAR evidence and our own.
47 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that the large elasticity of substitution between capital and labor estimated in the literature on average, 0.9, can be explained by three issues: publication bias, use of cross-country variation, and omission of the first-order condition for capital.
45 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of both domestic and foreign R&D capital stocks on total factor productivity were investigated and it was shown that the foreign stocks had large effects on the smaller countries in the sample.
Abstract: Investment in research and development (R&D) affects a country's total factor productivity. Recently new theories of economic growth have emphasized this link and have also identified a number of channels through which a country's R&D affects total factor productivity of its trade partners. Following these theoretical developments we estimate the effects of a country's R&D capital stock and the R&D capital stocks of its trade partners on the country's total factor productivity. We find large effects of both domestic and foreign R&D capital stocks on total factor productivity. The foreign R&D capital stocks have particularly large effects on the smaller countries in our sample (that consists of 22 countries). Moreover, we find that about one-quarter of the worldwide benefits of investment in R&D in the seven largest economies are appropriated by their trade partners.
3,717 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a model is presented based on recent theories of economic growth that treat commercially oriented innovation efforts as a major engine of technological progress, and the authors study the extent to which a country's total factor productivity depends not only on domestic R&D capital but also on foreign capital.
3,397 citations
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TL;DR: Aghion and Howitt make use of Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction, the competitive process whereby entrepreneurs constantly seek new ideas that will render their rivals' ideas obsolete as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Advanced economies have experienced a tremendous increase in material well-being since the industrial revolution. Modern innovations such as personal computers, laser surgery, jet airplanes, and satellite communication have made us rich and transformed the way we live and work. But technological change has also brought with it a variety of social problems. It has been blamed at various times for increasing wage and income inequality, unemployment, obsolescence of physical and human capital, environmental deterioration, and prolonged recessions. To understand the contradictory effects of technological change on the economy, one must delve into structural details of the innovation process to analyze how laws, institutions, customs, and regulations affect peoples' incentive and ability to create new knowledge and profit from it. To show how this can be done, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt make use of Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction, the competitive process whereby entrepreneurs constantly seek new ideas that will render their rivals' ideas obsolete. Whereas other books on endogenous growth stress a particular aspect, such as trade or convergence, this book provides a comprehensive survey of the theoretical and empirical debates raised by modern growth theory. It develops a powerful engine of analysis that sheds light not only on economic growth per se, but on the many other phenomena that interact with growth, such as inequality, unemployment, capital accumulation, education, competition, natural resources, international trade, economic cycles, and public policy.
3,005 citations
TL;DR: This article used a generalized method of moments estimator to estimate a variety of cross-country growth regressions and found that per capita incomes converge to their steady-state levels at a rate of approximately 10 percent per year.
Abstract: There are two sources of inconsistency in existing cross-country empirical work on growth: correlated individual effects and endogenous explanatory variables. We estimate a variety of cross-country growth regressions using a generalized method of moments estimator that eliminates both problems. In one application, we find that per capita incomes converge to their steady-state levels at a rate of approximately 10 percent per year. This result stands in sharp contrast to the current consensus, which places the convergence rate at 2 percent. We discuss the theoretical implications of this finding. In another application, we perform a test of the Solow model. Again, contrary to prior reults, we reject both the standard and the augmented version of the model.
2,160 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, a model of repeated product improvements in a continuum of sectors is developed, where each product follows a stochastic progression up a quality ladder, and the rate of aggregate growth is constant.
Abstract: We develop a model of repeated product improvements in a continuum of sectors. Each product follows a stochastic progression up a quality ladder. Progress is not uniform across sectors, so an equilibrium distribution of qualities evolves over time. But the rate of aggregate growth is constant. The growth rate responds to profit incentives in the R&D sector. We explore the welfare properties of our model. Then we relate our approach to an alternative one that views product innovation as a process of generating an ever expanding range of horizontally differentiated products. Finally, we apply the model to issues of resource accumulation and international trade.
2,080 citations