Various theories have been advanced for why employees leave incumbent firms to found firms in the same industry, which we call spinoffs. We review the accumulating evidence about spinoffs in various high-tech industries, highlighting the central role often played by disagreements. Because...

A two-country model of growth is developed with exogenous fluctuations in the rate of technological progress. Technological growth in the leading country follows a random walk, while in the lagging country the rate of advance depends on the technological distance between the two countries and...

"Using a large, individual-level wage data set, we examine the impact of a major technological innovation -- the steam engine -- on skill demand and the wage structure in the merchant shipping industry. We find that the technical change created a new demand for skilled workers, the engineers,...

This chapter reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on learning by doing. Many of the distinctive theoretical implications of learning by doing have been derived under the assumption that the cost–quantity relationships observed in numerous empirical studies are largely the result of...

Using a large, individual-level wage data set, we examine the impact of a major technological innovation the steam engine on skill demand and the wage structure in the merchant shipping industry. We find that the technical change created a new demand for skilled workers, the engineers, while...

Using a large, individual-level wage data set, we examine the impact of a major technological innovation the steam engine on skill demand and the wage structure in the merchant shipping industry. We find that the technical change created a new demand for skilled workers, the engineers, while...