Search

This research shows that linguistic differences can influence the diffusion of technology and income between countries. I use a measure of language similarity known as the normalised Levenshtein distance to show that lexical distances closely track bilateral differences in the adoption intensities of key production technologies. This relationship holds for technologies in the transportation, information technology, steel, telecommunications and health sectors. Linguistic differences also result in larger bilateral gaps in per capita income. These results hold among higher but not low‐income nations, likely because language affects technology transfer only once a threshold level of development is surpassed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 1880 s panel data from Yamanashi and Gifu prefectures in Japan, we estimated the diffusion factors and total factor productivity (TFP) in machine-reeling technology in Japan's silk-reeling sector. While the cost of distance through the traditional highway from the Shimosuwa-shuk post town in the Nagano Prefecture has a negative correlation with technology diffusion, the correlation of silk production per population is positive. Machine-reeling technology is raw-material- intensive and does not show increasing returns to scale. While the TFP in Yamanashi is higher than in Gifu, machine-reeling output expansion is larger in the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both theoretical and empirical work reports contingent and conflicting findings on how intellectual property (IP) protection affects related outcomes such as innovation, technology diffusion, productivity, or growth. To establish where the balance of the evidence lies, we conduct a multi‐outcome meta‐regression analysis to synthesize findings form 91 primary studies that report 1626 effect‐size estimates for one or more outcomes. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and selection bias only, we find that the effect on innovation, technology diffusion, productivity, and economic growth is statistically or practically insignificant. The effect remains insignificant when we control for observed sources of heterogeneity and estimate meta‐effects based on different scenarios for "best‐practice" research. Our work contributes to the existing research effort by extending the application of the multi‐outcome meta‐regression analysis into evidence synthesis in economics. It also provides verifiable/replicable evidence indicating that the sanguine claims about the economic benefits of IP protection voiced in some legal studies and the advocacy literature are misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study establishes economic growth needed for supply-side mobile money drivers in developing countries to be positively related to mobile money innovations in the perspectives of mobile money accounts, the mobile phone used to send money, and the mobile phone used to receive money. The empirical evidence is based on Tobit regressions. For the negative net relationships that are computed, minimum economic growth thresholds are established above which the net negative relationships become net positive relationships. The following minimum economic growth rates are required for nexuses between supply-side mobile money drivers and mobile money innovations to be positive: (i) 6.109 percent (6.193%) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for mobile connectivity performance to be positively associated with the mobile phone used to send (receive) money and (ii) 4.590 percent (4.259%) of GDP growth for mobile connectivity coverage to be positively associated with the mobile phone used to send (receive) money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: With increasing global warming, the new energy industry has become the mainstay for achieving a sustainable development of human society. The effective diffusion of leading technologies is the source of social benefits obtained from enterprise core technologies, and it is also a necessary factor for the transformation and optimization of industry. In the international context of energy conservation and emission reduction, systematically and comprehensively studying the diffusion mechanism of leading technologies in new energy industry has important theoretical and practical significance for promoting the diffusion of leading technologies in the new energy industry. Based on the introduction of the cellular automaton model and its extension model, this paper constructs the diffusion model of new energy industry's leading technology and analyzes the diffusion mechanism. This mechanism shows that in the case of the market and policy environments in nowadays, the diffusion of new energy industry's leading technology is mainly influenced by promotion intensity, market share of positive and negative idea leaders, as well as the enterprise scale of strong chain and weak chain. This influence is verified by simulation analysis. Based on the diffusion mechanism, suggestions are presented for promoting the diffusion mechanism of new energy industry leading technology. These suggestions aim to provide a reference for the government, industry associations, and enterprises in making relevant decisions. The novelty of the work is: At the industrial level, this paper explores both the development law and diffusion mechanism of the leading technology in the new energy industry, which is conducive to improving and enriching the theoretical system of technological innovation.This paper uses simulation analysis to verify the diffusion mechanism of leading technologies in the new energy industry. This approach effectively improves the diffusion level of leading technology in the new energy industry and provides a reference for energy upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how endogenous innovation and technology diffusion interact to determine the shape of the productivity distribution and generate aggregate growth. We model firms that choose to innovate, adopt technology, or produce with their existing technology. Costly adoption creates a spread between the best and worst technologies concurrently used to produce similar goods. The balance of adoption and innovation determines the shape of the distribution; innovation stretches the distribution, while adoption compresses it. On the balanced growth path, the aggregate growth rate equals the maximum growth rate of innovators. While innovation drives long‐run growth, changes in the adoption environment can influence growth by affecting innovation incentives, either directly, through licensing of excludable technologies, or indirectly, via the option value of adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because payments for environmental services (PES) often subsidize practices that offer latent private benefits, there are concerns that PES programs may provide little additional environmental benefits. Previous literature has framed the problem of non‐additionality as an adverse selection problem. We develop a model where moral hazard can also arise because some agents delay adoption due to the incentive of potentially receiving a payment in the future. Moral hazard arises when agents have expectations of potential future subsidies, the technology naturally diffuses without a policy, and a subsidy is only available if the agent has not previously adopted the technology. We develop a conceptual model to illustrate the moral hazard incentive and conduct numerical simulations to understand the impact of policy parameters on aggregate outcomes. Numerical simulations illustrate that moral hazard creates a non‐monotonic relationship between policy parameters—such as the subsidy and budget levels—and the net change in adoption induced by the program because some agents delay adoption. We also find that the cost‐effectiveness of the policy is smaller when the policy is introduced during periods of rapid technology adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates international technology diffusion through FDI by explicitly considering the ownership structure of FDI projects with detailed Chinese data. We find that international joint ventures (JVs) generate significantly positive technology diffusion effects, while wholly foreign‐owned firms (WFOs) generate significantly negative competition effects. The differentiated impacts of JVs and WFOs are robust, heterogeneous and causal as shown by our instrumental variable estimation. As for the mechanisms, evidence suggests that JVs bring better technology to the host country, invest more in R&D and employee training, and also provide easier technology access to local firms than WFOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes six case studies of new water technology innovations in the last three decades and investigates the differences in timelines for moving through the various stages of water technology commercialization. The concept of two different types of innovation was explored: Crisis/Needs Driven and Value Driven. It was found that the case studies that mapped to the Crisis/Needs Driven innovation moved relatively quickly compared to Value Driven innovations and in most cases involved new entrants. New entrants refer to new companies or start‐ups that have recently entered the water technology market. The case studies, which could be mapped to Value Driven innovation, had a slower rate of technology diffusion, and they involved a combination of existing companies as well as new entrants. Practitioner points: The paper identifies two key types of innovation: Crisis/Needs Driven and Value Driven.Legislation was observed to be a key driver for the adoption of new technology innovation in the water sector.The Crisis/Needs driven innovations studied were observed to diffuse through the Water Technology Diffusion model at up to twice the pace of Value driven innovation.Crisis/Needs driven innovation typically involves disruptive innovation offered by new entrants, whereas with Value driven innovation, the solutions are provided by both existing companies as well as new entrants.It is also observed that in most cases a technology that is adopted in order to meet a crisis or need in the market is more expensive at the outset compared with incumbent solutions.While value driven adoption has a slower cycle for adoption, it presents a lower risk as it is less dependent on external factors and timing of implementation of regulations or the occurrence of some public health related or environmental crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatially mediated peer effects are increasingly recognized as an important driver of technology adoption. In this paper, we isolate the role of peer effects from environmental factors in the acquisition of groundwater rights for agricultural irrigation in Kansas. We find strong evidence of peer effects influencing farmers' decisions to adopt groundwater irrigation. Using a rich dataset on groundwater rights for the period 1943–2014 and a nearest neighbor peer group definition, we find that one additional neighbor adopting groundwater for irrigation increases groundwater adoption by an average of 0.25 percentage points. We also find that the average marginal effect of one additional peer is reduced by distance and diminishes as the total number of neighbors adopting groundwater increases. Using our model estimates to simulate a counterfactual without peer effects, we find that water rights appropriation stemming from peer effects accounted for about 11 million acre-feet of extraction from the Kansas High Plains Aquifer. This amounts to about three years of typical annual extraction. Our results provide evidence that peer effects can "speed up" resource extraction and can help inform policy makers in designing exploitation control rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides insights regarding the state of the literature on the economics of drip irrigation adoption and diffusion. Our literature review finds that the methodological approaches to studying diffusion--conceptual modeling, empirical analysis, and historical narratives--are complementary, yet historical analyses have been underemphasized. To address this gap, we conduct a historical analysis of the diffusion of drip irrigation in California. Our forty-five-year narrative highlights that the successful adoption of drip irrigation to diverse crops and locations required (i) coevolution of the technology and complementary production processes, and (ii) joint efforts by private and public experts at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced metering infrastructure provides the first building block in smart grids by empowering customers and utilities with real-time information regarding energy use. It is a key element in the U.S. government's push for electric grid modernization. Using a panel dataset for 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia over the years 2007-2012, we evaluate the impacts of a polycentric governance system and socioeconomic contexts on states' performance in smart metering deployment. We find that the advanced metering technological change in the United States has been exclusively created by the interdependencies and interactions between different layers of government. High-tech industry is the only socioeconomic factor that has a negative impact on smart meter deployment, whereas other factors, such as pressures from energy consumers and environmental groups, and electric grid conditions, have negligible impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article evaluates the impact of the introduction of incentive regulation on technology deployment, as evaluated using two technology deployment metrics, among the population of local exchange carriers in the USA between 1988 and 2001. The regulatory schemes are disaggregated into five categories, permitting examination of heterogeneity among regulatory schemes. The results show that the rate of return method and the other intermediate incentive schemes implemented have had a negative impact on technology deployment. Conversely, the introduction of pure price caps schemes had a positive and significant impact on firms' technology deployment. These results highlight the importance of appropriate incentive compatible mechanism design in motivating firms to adopt the new and important technologies that have been developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Public demonstration projects are used to promote the upscaling of green-manufacturing technologies in China, in order to expedite innovation 'catch-up' and transitions to sustainable development. However, these projects are facing implementation challenges, because the relevant barriers are different from traditional demonstrations in new technological niches, when involving complex economic concerns and prolific small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as adopters. This paper, therefore, adopts a case-based approach to investigate a specific example of a demonstration project in China to support the large-scale diffusion of green technology and its pilot implementations. Through the case study, this paper reveals that these demonstrations face a different set of diffusion barriers in testing technologies and promoting learning. In addition, this case also shows that a new policy model may be needed in order to cope with these barriers, when emphasizing market-oriented policies and non-legislative actors as well as combining them with traditional mandatory measures. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess whether physicians' reported electronic health record (EHR) use provides clinical benefits and whether benefits depend on using an EHR meeting Meaningful Use criteria or length of EHR experience.Data Source: The 2011 Physician Workflow study, representative of U.S. office-based physicians.Study Design: Cross-sectional data were used to examine the association of EHR use with enhanced patient care overall and nine specific clinical benefits.Principal Findings: Most physicians with EHRs reported EHR use enhanced patient care overall (78 percent), helped them access a patient's chart remotely (81 percent), and alerted them to a potential medication error (65 percent) and critical lab values (62 percent). Between 30 and 50 percent of physicians reported that EHR use was associated with clinical benefits related to providing recommended care, ordering appropriate tests, and facilitating patient communication. Using EHRs that met Meaningful Use criteria and having 2 or more years of EHR experience were independently associated with reported benefits. Physicians with EHRs meeting Meaningful Use criteria and longer EHR experience were most likely to report benefits across all 10 measures.Conclusions: Physicians reported EHR use enhanced patient care overall. Clinical benefits were most likely to be reported by physicians using EHRs meeting Meaningful Use criteria and longer EHR experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his previous work, Yano defined market quality as a market performance measure combining efficiency and fairness. His theory states that market quality is supported by well-coordinated market infrastructure, including laws, rules, and compliance as well as more basic factors such as culture, morals, and ethics. Focusing on the free-riding aspect of technology diffusion from the North to the South, this study demonstrates that market quality in the South can be supported by the coordination of the South's intellectual property law and its basic morals towards honoring intellectual property developed in the North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a framework to evaluate emerging systems in life cycle assessment (LCA). Current LCA methods are effective for established systems; however, lack of data often inhibits robust analysis of future products or processes that may benefit the most from life cycle information. In many cases the life cycle inventory (LCI) of a system can change depending on its development pathway. Modeling emerging systems allows insights into probable trends and a greater understanding of the effect of future scenarios on LCA results. The proposed framework uses Bayesian probabilities to model technology adoption. The method presents a unique approach to modeling system evolution and can be used independently or within the context of an agent-based model (ABM). LCA can be made more robust and dynamic by using this framework to couple scenario modeling with life cycle data, analyzing the effect of decision-making patterns over time. Potential uses include examining the changing urban metabolism of growing cities, understanding the development of renewable energy technologies, identifying transformations in material flows over space and time, and forecasting industrial networks for developing products. A switchgrass-to-energy case demonstrates the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Public & Cooperative Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We investigate whether and how technical cooperation aid (TC) facilitates technological diffusion from developed to developing countries, comparing it with foreign direct investment (FDI) and external openness. Two robust findings emerge. First, TC, FDI and openness all contribute to international technology transfers and openness seems to contribute the most, which is followed by TC. Second, around 6-17 countries out of 85 in our sample fail to catch up to the technological leader over the 36 years. These results suggest that as a policy instrument, TC can play an important role in facilitating technological catch up of developing countries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on a study which assessed trends in utilization of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for head and neck cancer (HNC) from 2000 to 2005 in the U.S. Data reviewed were from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Resuts (SEER)-Medicare linked database. The researchers employed multivariate logistic regression analyses to determine the influence of patient, tumor, treatment and sociodemographic traits on receipt of IMRT against conventional radiotherapy techniques. A discussion on the research findings is detailed.

This paper presents the characterization and sustainability assessment of an integrated scenario describing a number of demonstration projects currently planned along the proposed Hydrogen Highway™ in British Columbia (BC), Canada. The characterization reveals a large gap between the current activity and the projections of the Canadian National Energy Board Techno-Vert scenario for British Columbia in 2010. Insights from the technology diffusion literature are also discussed as it pertains to the diffusion of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The sustainability assessment reveals that the BC hydrogen energy scenario as a whole is more sustainable in terms of its CO2(eq) emissions, air pollutant emissions and energy efficiency than a more conventional scenario, but costly in terms of its CO2(eq) reduction potential. The paper discusses the limitations of the cost-effectiveness calculations as well as the sustainability assessment, and suggestions are made for future improvements in this area. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An integrated mathematical model constituting of interlinked submodels on technology costs, progress and market penetration has been developed. The model was applied to a few new energy technologies to investigate the economic boundary conditions for a full market breakthrough and corresponding market impact on a 50 years time scale. The model shows that public subsidies amounting to slightly over 220 billion € in total worldwide would be necessary over the next 30–40 years to bring wind and photovoltaics to a cost breakthrough in the market and to reach a 20 and 5% share of all electricity at t = 50 years, respectively. These up-front learning investments would be partly amortized toward the end of the interval as the new technologies become cost competitive but could be fully paid off earlier if CO2 emission trading schemes emerge even with modest CO2 price levels. The findings are sensitive to changes in the parameter assumptions used. For example, a 2% uncertainty in the main parameters of the model could lead to a spread of tens of per cents in the future energy impact and subsidy needs, or when related to the above subsidy estimate, 155–325 billion €. This underlines the overall uncertainty in predicting future impacts and resource needs for new energy technologies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent literature on agricultural technology adoption shows that diffusion of new technologies varies significantly across space and time. Furthermore, puzzles exist about why some seemingly profitable technologies are not adopted, especially in livestock production. We employ a hazard or duration function to explain diffusion of crossbred-cow technology in a unique sample of Tanzania farmers. A farmer's adoption of crossbred technology depends positively on the proximity of his farm to other users, on his schooling, and on his access to credit and contact with extension agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a new encompassing flexible diffusion model of the epidemic type is proposed and its properties explored. Economic factors are incorporated directly into the model. The new model allows freer interaction between exogenous and endogenous factors in the diffusion process than existing models of this type. The model is applied to the diffusion of colour television ownership in the UK and outperforms the existing models in the literature. The exogenous factors are shown to play a more dominant role in the diffusion of colour television in the UK than existing models allow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]