In this paper we develop a new insight into the process of learning in an infant industry, in a setting where entrepreneurs are differentiated by talent. The learning rate depends on the quality of ideas, not on the scale of the industry, and a competitive open economy regime may furnish a...

To analyze effects of imperfect property rights on economic growth, we consider economies where some fraction of capital can be owned only by local oligarchs, whose status is subject to political risk. Political risk decreases local capital and wages. Risk-averse oligarchs acquire safe foreign...

Empirical evidence on industry life-cycle reveals a pattern in which innovation rates remain fairly stable or are perhaps even higher at early stages, while patenting increases sharply as the industry matures. This increase in patenting in later stages is accompanied by net exit and lower rates...

While aggregate data do not show the investment echoes predicted by vintage-capital models, echoes arise in rates of entry and exit of firms at the industry level. Moreover, industries where prices decline rapidly experience early 'shakeouts'. The relation emerges naturally in a vintage-capital...

We model Moore's Law as efficiency of computer producers that rises as a by-product of their experience. We find that (a) because computer prices fall much faster than the prices of electricity-driven and diesel-driven capital ever did, growth in the coming decades should be very fast, and that...

If machines are indivisible, a vintage capital model must give rise to income inequality. If new machines are always better than old ones and if society cannot provide everyone with a new machine all of the time, inequality will result. I explore this mechanism in detail. If technology resides...

(Copyright: Elsevier)