IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id12208.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality and Expectations in a Model of Technology Adoption and Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Surbhi Badhwar
  • Mausumi Das

Abstract

This paper highlights the role of initial wealth inequality in determining the technology adoption decision of firms, which in turn impacts upon the overall productivity in an economy. Wealth inequality interacts with producers’ expectations to generate mutiple equilibria: poor economies where initial wealth inequality is too high are perpetually stuck at a bad equilibrium with poor technology; economies with moderate degree of inequality can oscillate between the bad and the good equilibria depending on producers’ expectations; and rich economies with sufficiently low degree of wealth inequality always enjoy a self-sustaining good equilibrium, characterized by the adoption of advanced technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Surbhi Badhwar & Mausumi Das, 2017. "Inequality and Expectations in a Model of Technology Adoption and Growth," Working Papers id:12208, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:12208
    Note: Institutional Papers
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.esocialsciences.org/Download/repecDownload.aspx?fname=A2017118143250_29.pdf&fcategory=Articles&AId=12208&fref=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susanto Basu & David N. Weil, 1998. "Appropriate Technology and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1025-1054.
    2. Klenow, Peter J. & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 1997. "Economic growth: A review essay," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 597-617, December.
    3. Murphy, Kevin M & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1989. "Industrialization and the Big Push," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1003-1026, October.
    4. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    5. Parente, Stephen L & Prescott, Edward C, 1994. "Barriers to Technology Adoption and Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 298-321, April.
    6. Atkinson, Anthony B & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1969. "A New View of Technological Change," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 79(315), pages 573-578, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2001. "Productivity Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 563-606.
    2. Jerzmanowski, Michal & Tamura, Robert, 2019. "Directed technological change & cross-country income differences: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. Gancia, Gino & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2005. "Horizontal Innovation in the Theory of Growth and Development," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 111-170, Elsevier.
    4. Diao, Xinshen & Rattso, Jorn & Stokke, Hildegunn Ekroll, 2005. "International spillovers, productivity growth and openness in Thailand: an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 429-450, April.
    5. Gino Gancia & Andreas Müller & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2010. "Structural development accounting," Economics Working Papers 1249, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Feb 2011.
    6. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1999. "Unemployment vs. Mismatch of Talents: Reconsidering Unemployment Benefits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 266-291, April.
    7. Sadik, Jacques, 2008. "Technology adoption, convergence, and divergence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 338-355, February.
    8. Chong-Kee Yip & Tsz-Nga Wong, 2014. "A Model of Technology Assimilation," 2014 Meeting Papers 144, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Caselli, Francesco & Wilson, Daniel J., 2004. "Importing technology," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-32, January.
    10. repec:awi:wpaper:0480 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Andreas Irmen, 2008. "Cross-Country Income Differences and Technology Diffusion in a Competitive World," CESifo Working Paper Series 2504, CESifo.
    12. repec:ilo:ilowps:366690 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Areendam Chanda & Beatrice Farkas, 2009. "Technology-Skill Complementarity and International TFP Differences," DEGIT Conference Papers c014_028, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    14. Barseghyan, Levon & DiCecio, Riccardo, 2016. "Externalities, endogenous productivity, and poverty traps," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 112-126.
    15. Fiaschi, Davide & Lavezzi, Andrea Mario, 2007. "Nonlinear economic growth: Some theory and cross-country evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 271-290, September.
    16. Chris Papageorgiou, 2002. "Human Capital and Convergence in a Non-Scale R&D Growth Model," Departmental Working Papers 2002-10, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    17. Filippetti, Andrea & Payrache, Antonio, 2010. "Productivity growth and catch up in Europe: A new perspective on total factor productivity differences," MPRA Paper 27212, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Feyrer James D, 2008. "Convergence by Parts," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-35, July.
    19. Pablo Bandeira, 2009. "Instituciones y desarrollo económico. Un marco conceptual," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 11(20), pages 355-373, January-J.
    20. Bulent Unel, 2013. "The Interaction Between Technology Adoption and Trade When Firms are Heterogeneous," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 797-808, September.
    21. Berdugo, Binyamin & Hadad, Sharon, 2008. "How Do Firing Costs Affect Innovation and Growth when Workers' Ability is Unknown? – Employment Protection as a Burden on a Firm's Screening Process," MPRA Paper 11410, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Davide Fiaschi, 2004. "Nonlinear Growth and the Productivity Slowdown," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 162, Society for Computational Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:12208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.