This paper studies policy instruments that correct insufficient learning-by-doing (LbD) and research and development (R&D) of renewable electricity technologies and insufficient investments in energy efficiency (EE) in the presence of carbon pricing. The theoretical model analysis shows how to re-adjust the first-best in second-best situations, in which one of the policy instruments is restrict...

Using micro evidence from manufacturing and services firms located in 55 African countries, this paper shows that better management practice, reflected by international management certification, helps firms to raise productivity. Larger and older firms and firms operating closer to the technological frontier are more likely to possess international management standards certification, as do firm...

We construct a model where the equilibrium organization of firms changes as an economy approaches the world technology frontier. In vertically integrated firms, owners (managers) have to spend time both on production and innovation activities, and this creates managerial overload, and discourages innovation. Outsourcing of some production activities mitigates the managerial overload, but create...

I adopt the distribution dynamics framework to study labor productivity convergence, in the period 1980-1995, among 28 developed and developing countries, in different manufacturing sub-sectors, identified, as according their technological content into Resource Based, Low Technology, Medium Technology and High Technology. I find that, exception made for High Technology and Manufacturing as a wh...

We study a simple model of a population of agents whose interaction network co-evolves with knowledge diffusion and accumulation. Diffusion takes place along the current network and, reciprocally, network formation depends on the knowledge profile. Diffusion makes neighboring agents tend to display similar knowledge levels. On the other hand, similarity in knowledge favors network formation. Th...

This paper considers the observational implications of social influences on adoption decisions for an environment of perfect foresight adopters. We argue that social influences can produce two observable effects: (1) discontinuities in unconditional adoption curves and (2) pattern reversals in conditional adoption curves, in which earlier adoption is found for one group of actors versus another...

Within uncertain technological progress, a firm has to decide when to update its technology and select a new one among a non-decreasing range over time. Under constant return to scale, the best existing technology is implemented. Replacement is triggered not only when the firm operated technology is sufficiently obsolete but also the wedge between the latest and the state of the arts grades is ...

We consider a model of cake-eating with private information. The model captures phenomena such as trust and “security of supply” in resource-use relationships. It also predicts supply shocks as an equilibrium phenomenon: privately informed sellers have incentives to reveal resource scarcity too late, through a supply disruption, after which they exploit the consumers’ inability to immediately a...

The business opportunities in Southern Africa have justified any effort to learn more about the phenomenon of the transfer of knowledge to the local subsidiaries. We studied four cases with activities in the industrial sector. The results obtained indicate that an efficient transfer of knowledge from the source to the recipient depends on the source’s ability to transfer this knowledge; the cli...

This paper proposes and evaluates a mechanism through which imports of unskilled intermediates (offshoring) benefit both skilled and unskilled workers by inducing capital deepening and innovation in developed countries. Data for manufacturing industries in the US over 1974-2005, show that although offshoring increases inequality between skilled and unskilled workers, unskilled workers also gain...