IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Why Doesn't Technology Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Harold L. Cole
  • Jeremy Greenwood
  • Juan M. Sanchez

Abstract

What determines the technology that a country adopts? While many factors affect technological adoption, the efficiency of the country's financial system may also play a significant role. To address this question, a dynamic contract model is embedded into a general equilibrium setting with competitive intermediation. The ability of an intermediary to monitor and control the cash flows of a firm plays an important role in the technology adoption decision. Can such a theory help to explain the differences in total factor productivity and establishment-size distributions across India, Mexico, and the United States? A quantitative illustration suggests the answer is yes.

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://www.nber.org/papers/w20856.pdf
Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 20856.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Jan 2015
Publication status: published as Harold L. Cole & Jeremy Greenwood & Juan M. Sanchez, 2016. "Why Doesn't Technology Flow From Rich to Poor Countries?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1477-1521, 07.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20856
Note: EFG
Contact details of provider: Postal:
National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

Phone: 617-868-3900
Web page: http://www.nber.org
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D92 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
  • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
  • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
  • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
  • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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. James R. Tybout, 2000. "Manufacturing Firms in Developing Countries: How Well Do They Do, and Why?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 11-44, March.
  2. Robert M. Townsend & Kenichi Ueda, 2010. "Welfare Gains From Financial Liberalization," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(3), pages 553-597, 08.
  3. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan M. Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2010. "Financing Development: The Role of Information Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1875-1891, September.
  4. Greenwood, Jeremy & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1990. "Financial Development, Growth, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1076-1107, October.
  5. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2013. "Quantifying the Impact of Financial Development on Economic Development," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 194-215, January.
  6. Todd Schoellman, 2012. "Education Quality and Development Accounting," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(1), pages 388-417.
  7. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
  8. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1990. "Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 92-96, May.
  9. Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Productivity Losses from Financial Frictions: Can Self-Financing Undo Capital Misallocation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3186-3221, October.
  10. Levine, Ross, 2005. "Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Handbook of Economic Growth,in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 865-934 Elsevier.
  11. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2014. "The Life Cycle of Plants in India and Mexico," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(3), pages 1035-1084.
  12. Prescott, Edward C, 1998. "Needed: A Theory of Total Factor Productivity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 525-551, August.
  13. Gian Luca Clementi & Hugo A. Hopenhayn, 2006. "A Theory of Financing Constraints and Firm Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(1), pages 229-265.
  14. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 2010. "The New Dynamic Public Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9222, March.
  15. Fernandes, Ana & Phelan, Christopher, 2000. "A Recursive Formulation for Repeated Agency with History Dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 223-247, April.
  16. Williamson, Stephen D., 1986. "Costly monitoring, financial intermediation, and equilibrium credit rationing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 159-179, September.
  17. Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2006. "Designing Optimal Disability Insurance: A Case for Asset Testing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 257-279, April.
  18. Virgiliu Midrigan & Daniel Yi Xu, 2014. "Finance and Misallocation: Evidence from Plant-Level Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 422-458, February.
  19. Francisco J. Buera & Joseph P. Kaboski & Yongseok Shin, 2011. "Finance and Development: A Tale of Two Sectors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1964-2002, August.
  20. King, Robert G. & Levine, Ross, 1993. "Finance, entrepreneurship and growth: Theory and evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 513-542, December.
  21. Rui Castro & Gian Luca Clementi & Glenn MacDonald, 2004. "Investor Protection, Optimal Incentives, and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(3), pages 1131-1175.
  22. Siegel, Jeremy J., 1992. "The real rate of interest from 1800-1990 : A study of the U.S. and the U.K," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 227-252, April.
  23. Hopenhayn, Hugo & Rogerson, Richard, 1993. "Job Turnover and Policy Evaluation: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(5), pages 915-938, October.
  24. Banerjee, Abhijit V. & Duflo, Esther, 2005. "Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics," Handbook of Economic Growth,in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 473-552 Elsevier.
  25. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. The missing North-South flow of technology
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-11-09 15:50:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2014. "The Life Cycle of Plants in India and Mexico," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(3), pages 1035-1084.
  2. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2013. "Misallocation and productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, January.
  3. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2013. "Quantifying the Impact of Financial Development on Economic Development," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 194-215, January.
  4. Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül ; Zheng, Yu, 2016. "The Price of Growth: Consumption Insurance in China 1989-2009," Economics Working Papers ECO2016/13, European University Institute.
  5. Era Dabla-Norris & Yan Ji & Robert Townsend & Filiz D Unsal, 2015. "Identifying Constraints to Financial Inclusion and Their Impact on GDP and Inequality; A Structural Framework for Policy," IMF Working Papers 15/22, International Monetary Fund.

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

  1. Why Doesn't Technology Flow From Rich to Poor Countries? (ECTA 2016) in ReplicationWiki

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

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

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.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.