The demographic transition –the move from a high fertility/high mortality regime into a low fertility/low mortality regime– is one of the most fundamental transformations that countries undertake. To study demographic transitions across time and space, we compile a data set of birth and...

This paper examines how product market competition affects firms' timing of adopting a new technology as well as whether the market provides sufficient adoption incentives. It shows that adoption dates differ not only among symmetric firms but also among markets with Cournot and Bertrand...

Several trade-based measures of product variety have recently been used implicitly to represent states of technology, promoting long-run growth. In this paper, we define the state of technology as the range of specialised production processes and propose the variety of capital goods available...

We study firm-level adoption of packaged software products of almost 4,000 UK sites between 2000 and 2003. We consider all software used in a firm as its software product and categorize it into related, but distinct subsystems: the core subsystem (Operating Systems), and Desktop and Enterprise...

Innovations in the finance industry are an important tool to enhance profitability and to increase a nation's wealth. It, therefore, is not astonishing that there is much empirical work on innovations in finance. Most of the work however is concerned with the design of innovative products. The...

Cross-country or cross-industry studies of technology diffusion typically estimate how independent factors affect diffusion speed or timing, often based on a two-stage approach. In many applications, however, countries (industries) differ most in the saturation level of diffusion. In a novel,...

The genetic engineering techniques are essential in modern agriculture and, at the same time, demand regulation on several levels. The diffusion of planting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has grown since 1996, notably in the United States, Argentina and Canada. In Brazil, the production...

This study analyses the diffusion of renewable energy (RE) technologies. It analyses the transition dynamics as the sector broadens its energy mix and changes its capital stock. This shift is found to be desirable from an environmental, geopolitical and economic perspective. Yet, it greatly...

Among available policy levers to boost innovation, investment in applied research organisations has received little empirical attention. In this paper, we analyse the case of the Fraunhofer Society, the largest public applied research organization in Germany. We analyse whether project...

In economic theory, technology is treated as crucial factor contributing significantly to economic development. In seminal works of Schumpeter [1934, 1947], Baumol [1986], Gerschenkron [1962] or Abramovitz [1986], the emphasis on the role of technological progress in process of economic...