Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Market Size, Trade, and the Resistance to the Adoption of Better Technology

Contents:

Author Info

  • Klaus Desmet

    () (Department of Economics Universidad Carlos III)

  • Stephen L. Parente

Abstract

Why is the adoption of more productive technologies more fiercely resisted in some societies than in others? This paper examines the role of market size and free trade in determining whether firms or workers resist the adoption of more advanced technologies. It puts forth a model whereby the price elasticity of demand for each industry's product is an increasing function of the economy's population size. A more elastic demand lowers the resistance to technology adoption because the drop in the price of the industry's output that follows the adoption of a cost-saving technology is associated with a larger increase in industry's revenue. We demonstrate this mechanism numerically and provide empirical support for this theory.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://repec.org/sed2006/up.9328.1139505146.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Society for Economic Dynamics in its series 2006 Meeting Papers with number 264.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 03 Dec 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:red:sed006:264

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Society for Economic Dynamics Christian Zimmermann Economic Research Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PO Box 442 St. Louis MO 63166-0442 USA
Fax: 1-860-486-4463
Email:
Web page: http://www.EconomicDynamics.org/society.htm
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Resistance; Trade; Ideal Varieties;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Romain Wacziarg & Karen Horn Welch, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 22(2), pages 187-231, June.
  2. Francisco Alcalá & Antonio Ciccone, 2001. "Trade and productivity," Economics Working Papers 580, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2002.
  3. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2005. "A simple model of firm heterogeneity, international trade, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-20, January.
  4. Paul M Romer, 1999. "Endogenous Technological Change," Levine's Working Paper Archive 2135, David K. Levine.
  5. Chad Syverson, 2004. "Market Structure and Productivity: A Concrete Example," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1181-1222, December.
  6. Paul Romer, 1991. "Endogenous Technological Change," NBER Working Papers 3210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. David Hummels & Volodymyr Lugovskyy, 2005. "Trade in Ideal Varieties: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 11828, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Thomas J. Holmes & James A. Schmitz, Jr., 1998. "A gain from trade: more research, less obstruction," Staff Report 245, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  9. Rodrigues, Mauro, 2010. "Import substitution and economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 175-188, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:sed006:264

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christian Zimmermann).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.