Technology gaps, trade and income

Thomas Sampson

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper studies the origins and consequences of international technology gaps. I develop an endogenous growth model where R&D efficiency varies across countries and productivity differences emerge from firm-level technology investments. The theory characterizes how innovation and learning determine technology gaps, trade and global income inequality. Countries with higher R&D efficiency are richer and have comparative advantage in more innovation-dependent industries where the advantage of backwardness is lower and knowledge spillovers are more localized. I estimate R&D efficiency by country and innovation-dependence by industry from R&D and bilateral trade data. Calibrating the model implies technology gaps, due to cross-country differences in R&D efficiency, account for around one-quarter to one-third of nominal wage variation within the OECD.

Keywords: technology gaps; trade; technology investment; Ricardian comparative advantage; international income inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F11 F43 O14 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-gro, nep-ino, nep-int, nep-knm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/102812/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Technology Gaps, Trade, and Income (2023)
Working Paper: Technology gaps, trade and income (2023)
Working Paper: Technology gaps, trade and income (2019)
Working Paper: Technology Gaps, Trade and Income (2019)
Working Paper: Technology Gaps, Trade and Income (2019)
Working Paper: Technology gaps, trade and income (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:102812

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager (lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk).