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Working Paper
A New Measure of Climate Transition Risk Based on Distance to a Global Emission Factor Frontier
Targeted financing of transition to a "net zero" global economy entails climate transition risk. We propose a measure of transition risk at the country-sector dyad level composed of five tiers of transition risk based on two factors: i) the gap between a dyad's existing emission factor (EF) -- a measure of the greenhouse gas intensity of output -- and the global 'frontier' sectoral EF, and ii) a dyad's recent convergence towards the frontier EF. Dyads that are either close to the frontier or converging towards the frontier carry lower transition risk. Our measure, using 45 sectors across 66 ...
Working Paper
Does Disappointing European Productivity Growth Reflect a Slowing Trend? Weighing the Evidence and Assessing the Future
In the years since the Great Recession, many observers have highlighted the slow pace of labor and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in advanced economies. This paper focuses on the European experience, where we highlight that trend TFP growth was already low in the runup to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This suggests that it is important to consider factors other than just the deep crisis itself or policy changes since the crisis. After the mid-1990s, European economies stopped converging, or even began diverging, from the U.S. level of TFP. That said, in contrast to the United ...
Working Paper
Technology adoption, mortality, and population dynamics
We develop a quantitative theory of mortality and population dynamics. We emphasize individuals' decisions to reduce their mortality by adopting better health technology. Adoption becomes cheaper as more individuals use better technology. It also confers a dynamic externality by increasing the future number of individuals who use the better technology. Our model generates a diffusion curve whose shape dictates the pace of mortality reduction. The model explains historical trends in mortality rates and life expectancies at various ages and population dynamics in Western Europe. Unlike ...
Working Paper
Technology Adoption, Mortality, and Population Dynamics
We develop a quantitative theory of mortality and population dynamics. We emphasize individuals' decisions to reduce their mortality by adopting better health technology. Adoption becomes cheaper as more individuals use better technology. It also confers a dynamic externality by increasing the future number of individuals who use the better technology. Our model generates a diffusion curve whose shape dictates the pace of mortality reduction. The model explains historical trends in mortality rates and life expectancies at various ages and population dynamics in Western Europe. Unlike ...
Report
The dual nature of trade: measuring its impact on imitation and growth
Imports of goods that embody foreign technology raise a country's output directly as inputs into production and indirectly through reverse-engineering of these goods, which contributes to domestic imitation and innovation. This paper first quantifies spillovers from high-technology imports from developed countries to domestic imitation and innovation in both developed and developing countries. It then considers the contribution of foreign and domestic innovation to real per capita GDP growth. ; International patent data for forty countries from 1970 to 1985 are used to create proxies for ...
Working Paper
Technology Adoption, Mortality, and Population Dynamics
We develop a quantitative theory of mortality and population dynamics. We emphasize individuals' decisions to reduce their mortality by adopting better health technology. Adoption confers a dynamic externality: Adoption becomes cheaper as more individuals use better technology. Our model generates a diffusion curve, whose shape dictates the pace of mortality reduction. The model explains historical trends in mortality rates and life expectancies at various ages, and population in Western Europe. Unlike Malthusian theories based solely on income, ours is consistent with the observed disconnect ...
Working Paper
Technology Adoption, Mortality, and Population Dynamics
We develop a quantitative theory of mortality and population dynamics, emphasizing individuals' decisions to reduce their mortality by adopting better health technology. Expanded use of this technology reduces the cost of adoption and confers a dynamic externality by increasing the future number of individuals who use the technology. Our model generates a diffusion curve whose shape dictates the pace of mortality reduction. The model explains historical trends in mortality rates and life expectancies at various ages and population dynamics in Western Europe. Unlike Malthusian theories based ...
Working Paper
Technology Adoption, Mortality, and Population Dynamics
We develop a quantitative theory of mortality and population dynamics. We emphasize individuals' decisions to reduce their mortality by adopting better health technology. Adoption confers a dynamic externality: Adoption becomes cheaper as more individuals use better technology. Our model generates a diffusion curve, whose shape dictates the pace of mortality reduction. The model explains historical trends in mortality rates and life expectancies at various ages, and population dynamics in Western Europe. Unlike Malthusian theories based solely on income, ours is consistent with the observed ...