IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed006/264.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Market Size, Trade, and the Resistance to the Adoption of Better Technology

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus Desmet

    (Department of Economics Universidad Carlos III)

  • Stephen L. Parente

Abstract

Why is the adoption of more productive technologies more fiercely resisted in some societies than in others? This paper examines the role of market size and free trade in determining whether firms or workers resist the adoption of more advanced technologies. It puts forth a model whereby the price elasticity of demand for each industry's product is an increasing function of the economy's population size. A more elastic demand lowers the resistance to technology adoption because the drop in the price of the industry's output that follows the adoption of a cost-saving technology is associated with a larger increase in industry's revenue. We demonstrate this mechanism numerically and provide empirical support for this theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus Desmet & Stephen L. Parente, 2006. "Market Size, Trade, and the Resistance to the Adoption of Better Technology," 2006 Meeting Papers 264, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed006:264
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2006/paper_264.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc J. Melitz & Giancarlo I. P. Ottaviano, 2021. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 4, pages 87-108, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Francisco Alcalá & Antonio Ciccone, 2004. "Trade and Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 613-646.
    3. Thomas J. Holmes & James A. Schmitz, 1998. "A gain from trade: more research, less obstruction," Staff Report 245, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Chad Syverson, 2004. "Market Structure and Productivity: A Concrete Example," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1181-1222, December.
    5. Rodrigues, Mauro, 2010. "Import substitution and economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 175-188, March.
    6. Romain Wacziarg & Karen Horn Welch, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 187-231, June.
    7. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2005. "A simple model of firm heterogeneity, international trade, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-20, January.
    8. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    9. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    10. Wolcott, Susan, 1994. "The Perils of Lifetime Employment Systems: Productivity Advance in the Indian and Japanese Textile Industries, 1920–1938," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 307-324, June.
    11. David Hummels & Volodymyr Lugovskyy, 2005. "Trade in Ideal Varieties: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 11828, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Parente, Stephen & Desmet, Klaus, 2006. "Bigger is Better: Market Size, Demand Elasticity and Resistance to Technology Adoption," CEPR Discussion Papers 5825, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Peter Gustafsson & Paul Segerstrom, 2010. "Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 207-228, May.
    3. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    4. Aleksandra Parteka, 2013. "The role of trade in intra-industry productivity growth - the case of old and new European Union countries (1995-2007)," GUT FME Working Paper Series A 1, Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdansk University of Technology.
    5. Matteo Cervellati & Alireza Naghavi & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Trade liberalization, democratization, and technology adoption," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 145-173, June.
    6. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    7. Chen Yeh & Claudia Macaluso & Brad Hershbein, 2022. "Monopsony in the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(7), pages 2099-2138, July.
    8. Xavier Vives, 2008. "Innovation And Competitive Pressure," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 419-469, December.
    9. Mastromarco Camilla & Laura Serlenga & Yongcheol Shin, 2013. "Globalisation and technological convergence in the EU," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 15-29, August.
    10. Baldwin, Richard E. & Robert-Nicoud, Frederic, 2008. "Trade and growth with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 21-34, January.
    11. Tran, Nguyen Van & Alauddin, Mohammad & Tran, Quyet Van, 2019. "Labour quality and benefits reaped from global economic integration: An application of dynamic panel SGMM estimators," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 92-106.
    12. Maria Bas & Ivan Ledezma, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Heterogeneous Technology Investments," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 738-781, September.
    13. Gu, Yiquan & Wenzel, Tobias, 2012. "Transparency, entry, and productivity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 7-10.
    14. Stefan Dodds & Mati Dubrovinsky, 2015. "Retail Amenities And Urban Sprawl," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 280-297, March.
    15. Jen Baggs & Eugene Beaulieu & Loretta Fung & Beverly Lapham, 2016. "Firm Dynamics in Retail Trade: The Response of Canadian Retailers to Exchange Rate Shocks," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 635-666, August.
    16. Pengfei Wang & Danyang Xie, 2018. "Trade, Sectorial Reallocation, and Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 19(1), pages 49-74, May.
    17. Giammario Impullitti & Omar Licandro, 2018. "Trade, Firm Selection and Innovation: The Competition Channel," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 189-229, February.
    18. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2011. "Growth Miracles and Growth Debacles," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13609.
    19. Roberto Álvarez & Ricardo A. López, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Industry Dynamics: A Difference in Difference Approach," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 470, Central Bank of Chile.
    20. Kevin Wiseman, 2010. "Location, Productivity, and Trade," 2010 Meeting Papers 671, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Technology Adoption; Resistance; Trade; Ideal Varieties;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:red:sed006:264. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    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.