Distance to the Technological Frontier and Economic Development

Ömer Özak

No 1201, Departmental Working Papers from Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This research explores the effects of distance to the pre-industrial technological frontiers on comparative economic development in the course of human history. It establishes theoretically and empirically that distance to the frontier had a persistent non-monotonic effect on a country's pre-industrial economic development. In particular, advancing a novel measure of the travel time to the technological frontiers, the analysis establishes a robust persistent U-shaped relation between distance to the frontier and pre-industrial economic development across countries. Moreover, it demonstrates that countries, which throughout the last two millennia were relatively more distant from these frontiers, have higher contemporary levels of innovation and entrepreneurial activity, suggesting that distance from the frontier may have fostered the emergence of a culture conducive to innovation, knowledge creation, and entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Comparative Development; Geographical Distance; Culture and Technology; Innovation; Technological Diffusion and Imitation; Patenting Activity; Entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E02 F15 F43 N10 N70 O11 O14 O31 O33 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-knm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:smu:ecowpa:1201

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