The effect of foreign and domestic patents on total factor productivity during the second half of the 20th century

This paper analyses the relationship between total factor productivity (TFP) and innovation-related variables during the second half of the 20th century. We perform this analysis for several European countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain) and the U.S., extending Coe and Helpman’s (1995) empirical specification to include human capital. We use a new dataset of patents data for the past 150 years to calculate the stock of knowledge using the perpetual inventory method. Our time series empirical analysis confirms the heterogeneous relationship between innovation variables (domestic stock of knowledge, imports of knowledge, and human capital) and productivity. Our results reveal the extent to which observed differences in technology adoption patterns and the levels of endowment of such resources can explain differences in TFP dynamics across countries. The estimated coefficients confirm the considerable gap that still exists between the European countries and the U.S. in innovation-related variables. Furthermore, we obtain a finding that may have important implications for innovation policies: the higher the level of investment in human capital, the higher the level of investment in domestic innovation, and the higher the response of TFP to a 1% increase in any of the aforementioned variablesEste trabajo analiza la relación entre la productividad total de los factores (PTF ) y las variables relacionadas con la innovación durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX . Este análisis se lleva a cabo en varios países europeos (Francia, Alemania, el Reino Unido y España) y en Estados Unidos, ampliando el trabajo de Coe y Helpman (1995) sobre la especificación empírica para incluir el capital humano. Utilizamos un nuevo conjunto de datos de patentes durante los últimos 150 años para calcular el stock de conocimiento mediante el método de inventario permanente. Nuestro análisis empírico con series temporales confirma la relación heterogénea entre las variables de innovación (stock de conocimiento nacional, importaciones de conocimiento y capital humano) y la productividad. Nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto hasta qué punto las diferencias observadas en los patrones de adopción de tecnología y los niveles de dotación de esos recursos pueden explicar las diferencias en la dinámica de la PTF entre países. Los coeficientes estimados confirman la brecha considerable que aún existe entre los países europeos y EE.UU. en las variables relacionadas con la innovación. Además, se obtiene un hallazgo que puede tener importantes implicaciones para las políticas de innovación: cuanto mayor sea el nivel de inversión en capital humano, mayor es el nivel de inversión en innovación nacional y mayor será la respuesta de la PTF a un aumento del 1 % en alguna de las variables mencionadas previament

A Rydberg Quantum Simulator

Following Feynman and as elaborated on by Lloyd, a universal quantum simulator (QS) is a controlled quantum device which reproduces the dynamics of any other many particle quantum system with short range interactions. This dynamics can refer to both coherent Hamiltonian and dissipative open system evolution. We investigate how laser excited Rydberg atoms in large spacing optical or magnetic lattices can provide an efficient implementation of a universal QS for spin models involving (high order) n-body interactions. This includes the simulation of Hamiltonians of exotic spin models involving n-particle constraints such as the Kitaev toric code, color code, and lattice gauge theories with spin liquid phases. In addition, it provides the ingredients for dissipative preparation of entangled states based on engineering n-particle reservoir couplings. The key basic building blocks of our architecture are efficient and high-fidelity n-qubit entangling gates via auxiliary Rydberg atoms, including a possible dissipative time step via optical pumping. This allows to mimic the time evolution of the system by a sequence of fast, parallel and high-fidelity n-particle coherent and dissipative Rydberg gates.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

The effect of foreign and domestic patents on total factor productivity during the second half of the 20th century

This paper analyses the relationship between total factor productivity (TFP) and innovation-related variables during the second half of the 20th century. We perform this analysis for several European countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain) and the U.S., extending Coe and Helpman’s (1995) empirical specification to include human capital. We use a new dataset of patents data for the past 150 years to calculate the stock of knowledge using the perpetual inventory method. Our time series empirical analysis confirms the heterogeneous relationship between innovation variables (domestic stock of knowledge, imports of knowledge, and human capital) and productivity. Our results reveal the extent to which observed differences in technology adoption patterns and the levels of endowment of such resources can explain differences in TFP dynamics across countries. The estimated coefficients confirm the considerable gap that still exists between the European countries and the U.S. in innovation-related variables. Furthermore, we obtain a finding that may have important implications for innovation policies: the higher the level of investment in human capital, the higher the level of investment in domestic innovation, and the higher the response of TFP to a 1% increase in any of the aforementioned variablesEste trabajo analiza la relación entre la productividad total de los factores (PTF ) y las variables relacionadas con la innovación durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX . Este análisis se lleva a cabo en varios países europeos (Francia, Alemania, el Reino Unido y España) y en Estados Unidos, ampliando el trabajo de Coe y Helpman (1995) sobre la especificación empírica para incluir el capital humano. Utilizamos un nuevo conjunto de datos de patentes durante los últimos 150 años para calcular el stock de conocimiento mediante el método de inventario permanente. Nuestro análisis empírico con series temporales confirma la relación heterogénea entre las variables de innovación (stock de conocimiento nacional, importaciones de conocimiento y capital humano) y la productividad. Nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto hasta qué punto las diferencias observadas en los patrones de adopción de tecnología y los niveles de dotación de esos recursos pueden explicar las diferencias en la dinámica de la PTF entre países. Los coeficientes estimados confirman la brecha considerable que aún existe entre los países europeos y EE.UU. en las variables relacionadas con la innovación. Además, se obtiene un hallazgo que puede tener importantes implicaciones para las políticas de innovación: cuanto mayor sea el nivel de inversión en capital humano, mayor es el nivel de inversión en innovación nacional y mayor será la respuesta de la PTF a un aumento del 1 % en alguna de las variables mencionadas previament

Optimality and distortionary lobbying: regulating tobacco consumption

We examine policies directed at regulating tobacco consumption through three types of instruments: (i) an excise tax hindering consumption by increasing the price of cigarettes, (ii) prevention programs helping consumers to make choices that are more time consistent when trading-off the current pleasure from smoking and its future health harms, and (iii) smoking bans directly restricting consumption. First, on normative grounds, we focus on the optimal design of public policies maximizing the economy’s surplus. Second, in a positive perspective, we investigate how the lobbying activities of the tobacco industry, of smokers, and of anti-tobacco organizations may distort government intervention

Identity and political corruption: a laboratory experiment

This paper explores the role of identity in voters’ decision to retain corrupt politicians. We build up a model of electoral accountability with pure moral hazard and bring it to the lab. Politicians must decide whether to invest in a public project with uncertain returns or to keep the funds for themselves. Voters observe the outcome of the project but not the action of the politician; if the project is unsuccessful, they do not know whether it was because of bad luck or because the politician embezzled the funds. We run two treatments; a control and a treatment where subjects are assigned an identity using the minimal group paradigm. Our main result is that, upon observing a failed project, voters approve politicians of their same identity group significantly more often than in the control and compared to politicians of a different identity group. This is partially driven by a belief on same-identity politicians being more honest. We also observe that subjects acting as politicians embezzle funds less often than expected by the equilibrium prediction

Vote buying or (political) business (cycles) as usual?

We study the short-run effect of elections on monetary aggregates in a sample of 85 low and middle income democracies (1975-2009). We find an increase in the growth rate of M1 during election months of about one tenth of a standard deviation. A similar effect can neither be detected in established OECD democracies nor in other months. The effect is larger in democracies with many poor and uneducated voters, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and in East-Asia and the Pacific. We argue that the election month monetary expansion is related to systemic vote buying which requires significant amounts of cash to be disbursed right before elections. The finely timed increase in M1 is consistent with this; is inconsistent with a monetary cycle aimed at creating an election time boom; and it cannot be, fully, accounted for by alternative explanations

Overlapping political budget cycles in the legislative and the executive

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing separately for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can separately identify these cycles and account for general year effects. For the executive branch, we show that it is important whether the incumbent re-runs. To account for the potential endogeneity associated with this decision, we apply a unique instrumental variables approach based on age and pension eligibility rules. We find sizable and significant effects in expenditures before council elections and before joint elections when the incumbent re-runs

Medio siglo de innovación y transferencia de tecnología en España, 1950-2000

In this study we analyse the effect of both foreign and domestic technological innovation on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) for Spain in the second half of the XXth century. For this purpose we estimate an extended version of Coe and Helpman (1995) model including a general human capital variable. The foreign and domestic stock of knowledge have been approximated throughout several variables such as the stock of R&D, the stock of patents and the expenses for using foreign licenses and patents. Our results suggest that the inflow of foreign technology had a positive and significant effect on the Spanish TFP, being this effect higher than the effect of the domestic stock of knowledge. Moreover, the openness to foreign trade has also favoured the arrival of foreign technology and the increase of productivity. Finally, it is interesting to highlight that our results indicate that human capital played also a relevant role on the evolution of TFP.En este trabajo se analiza el impacto de la innovación, tanto doméstica como extranjera, sobre la evolución de la Productividad Total de los Factores (PTF) de la economía española a lo largo de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Para ello se estima una versión revisada de la especificación empírica de Coe y Helpman (1995) que incluye el capital humano como variable de control. El stock de conocimiento doméstico y el extranjero se han aproximado a partir de diversos indicadores como el stock de gasto en I+D, el stock de patentes o el pago por el uso de licencias y patentes extranjeras. Los resultados sugieren que la entrada de tecnología extranjera ha tenido un impacto positivo y significativo sobre la evolución de la PTF y claramente superior al de la innovación doméstica. Además, la apertura exterior ha favorecido la incorporación de tecnología y el aumento de la productividad. Finalmente, es importante resaltar que nuestros resultados indican que la inversión en capital humano ha desempeñado un papel relevante como determinante de la evolución de la PTF

Do personality traits affect productivity? Evidence from the lab

While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labor market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. In this paper, we take advantage of a controlled laboratory set-up to test whether this relationship operates through productivity, and isolate this mechanism from other channels such as bargaining ability or self-selection into jobs. Using a gender neutral real-effort task, we analyse the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance. We find that more neurotic subjects perform worse, and that more conscientious individuals perform better. These findings are in line with previous survey studies and suggest that at least part of the effect of personality on labor market outcomes operates through productivity. In addition, we find evidence that gender and university major affect the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance

Institutions, Knowledge Accumulation and Productivity Growth in the Second Half of the XXth

This paper studies the relevance of institutional differences in the way knowledge determines productivity for a set of 21 OECD countries in the second half of the XXth century. The relationship between TFP and knowledge related variables is reconsidered after controlling for a new set of institutional variables tailored to represent the post WWII institutions: the Welfare State and international trade and capital flows liberalization. We estimate the impact of innovation variables over productivity during the Golden Age as compared to the whole period 1953-2007, after controlling by these specific institutional variables. Additionally, we distinguish the particular impact of these relationships for five groups of countries following Amable (2006) classification of different kinds of capitalism. Our results suggest institutions determine the response of TFP to the knowledge variables and that the resulting elasticities are higher during the Golden Age. We find that there are not significant differences between the different groups and the market oriented economies with regard to the elasticity of TFP to the indoor innovation, with the exception of Japan. However, the results suggest that in Anglo-Saxon market oriented economies, international spillovers of technology have a higher impact on TFP. Additionally, in continental and Mediterranean European countries and Japan, TFP is more sensitive to human capital accumulation than in the market-oriented economies (the US and the UK)