The diffusion of innovations is supposed to dissipate inventors' rents. Yet in many documented cases, inventors freely shared knowledge with their competitors. Using a model and case studies, this paper explores why sharing did not eliminate inventors' incentives. Each new technology coexisted...

We examine the diffusion of steam technology across British counties during the eighteenth century. First, we provide new estimates for the regional variations in the timing, pace and extent of usage of steam engines. Our main data source is an updated version of the list of steam engines...

This paper discusses the evolution of firms' productivity and structural heterogeneity (SH) in the Brazilian manufacturing industry in the 2000s. SH is defined (following the Latin American structuralist tradition) as a situation in which a large share of total firms is in the lowest...