Search Results
Working Paper
Cross-border Patenting, Globalization, and Development
We build a stylized model that captures the relationships between cross-border patenting, globalization, and development. Our theory delivers a gravity equation for cross-border patents. To test the model’s predictions, we compile a new dataset that tracks patents within and between countries and industries, for 1980-2019. The econometric analysis reveals a strong, positive impact of policy and globalization on cross-border patent flows, especially from North to South. A counterfactual welfare analysis suggests that the increase in patent flows from North to South has benefited both ...
Working Paper
Mind the Gap: AI Adoption in Europe and the US
This paper combines international evidence from worker and firm surveys conducted in 2025 and 2026 to document large gaps in AI adoption, both between the US and Europe and across European countries. Cross-country differences in worker demographics and firm composition account for an important share of these gaps. AI adoption, within and across countries, is also closely linked to firm personnel management practices and whether firms actively encourage AI use by workers. Micro-level evidence suggests that AI generates meaningful time savings for many workers. At the macro level, in recent ...
Report
The dual nature of trade: measuring its impact on imitation and growth
Imports of goods that embody foreign technology raise a country's output directly as inputs into production and indirectly through reverse-engineering of these goods, which contributes to domestic imitation and innovation. This paper first quantifies spillovers from high-technology imports from developed countries to domestic imitation and innovation in both developed and developing countries. It then considers the contribution of foreign and domestic innovation to real per capita GDP growth. ; International patent data for forty countries from 1970 to 1985 are used to create proxies for ...
Working Paper
Digital Adoption, Automation, and Labor Markets in Developing and Emerging Economies
We document a strong negative link between self-employment and the rate of digital adoption by firms in developing and emerging economies. No link between digital adoption and the unemployment rate is found, however. To explain this evidence, we build a general equilibrium search-and-matching model with endogenous labor force participation, self-employment, endogenous firm entry, and information-and-communications technology adoption. The main finding is that changes in the cost of technology adoption per se cannot rationalize the evidence. Instead, changes in firms' barriers to entry ...
Working Paper
Revisiting Adam Smith and the Division of Labor: New Evidence from U.S. Occupational Data, 1860–1940
Using novel occupational data from the United States between 1860 and 1940, we evaluate Adam Smith’s core propositions regarding the division of labor, market size, innovation, and productivity. We document significant growth in occupational diversity during this period using new measures of labor specialization that we construct from workers’ self-reported job titles in the decennial census. Consistent with Smith’s hypotheses, we find strong empirical evidence that labor specialization increases with the extent of the market, is facilitated by technological innovation, and is ...
Working Paper
Cross-border Patenting and the Margins of International Trade
This paper investigates the impact of cross-border patenting on the margins of international trade using disaggregated data on international patenting and trade flows. We develop a theoretical framework of trade and firms' patenting decisions that motivates our empirical analysis. The main results reveal that cross-border patenting has a larger effect on the extensive margin of trade compared to the intensive margin. This finding suggests that firms tend to seek patent protection in international markets prior to entering those markets with new products, rather than with their existing ...
Working Paper
Evolving comparative advantage, sectoral linkages, and structural change
I quantitatively examine the effects of location-and sector-specific productivity growth on structural change across countries from 1970-2011. The results shed new light on the ?hump shape" in industry's share in GDP across levels of development. There are two key features. First, otherwise identical changes in the composition of final demand translate differently into changes in the composition of value added because of systematic differences in sectoral linkages. Second, the mapping between sector-specific productivity and the composition of final demand systematically differs because of ...
Working Paper
Technology, Geopolitics, and Trade
We study how geopolitical fragmentation shapes cross-border technology licensing and innovation incentives. We show that bilateral royalty flows vary with geopolitical distance differently from goods trade, and that this relationship depends on intellectual property enforcement. To interpret these facts, we develop a growth-trade model in which geopolitical risk weakens licensing enforceability when intellectual property rights are poorly protected. Royalty payments reflect both technology adoption and licensing prices: weaker enforcement can reduce diffusion while inducing firms to reprice ...
Working Paper
R&D Subsidy and Import Substitution: Growing in the Shadow of Protection
I study the effect of an innovation subsidy on the growth of firms in a developing country. Using administrative microdata for Brazil and difference-in-differences, I find that innovation subsidies drive firm growth by facilitating firm entry into high-tariff markets with domestically produced versions of foreign goods. After receiving an innovation subsidy, firms issue more patents, expand their workforce, and diversify their product line. However, these patents receive minimal citations, while also heavily citing foreign patents. Firms increase imports of foreign inputs and expand their ...
Working Paper
Industrial Composition and Intergenerational Mobility
For five decades, the share of adults employed in college-degree-intensive industries, such as health care and education, has been rising. Industries that provided employment for workers without degrees, especially manufacturing, have been reducing their payrolls. This economic transition could impact the probability of children obtaining higher levels of education than their parents achieved. In this analysis, measures of the local industrial composition from the Current Population Survey are merged with the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth using the confidential geo-coded records. ...