This paper considers the relationship between aggregate productivity and stock and flow government-spending variables. The empirical results indicate that (i) the nonmilitary public capital stock is dramatically more important in determining productivity than is either the flow of nonmilitary or military spending, (ii) military capital bears little relation to productivity, and (iii) a 'core ' infrastructure of streets, highways, airports, mass transit, sewers, water systems, etc. has most explanatory power for productivity. The paper also suggests an important role for the net public capital stock in the 'productivity slowdown ' of the last fifteen years. 1.

We explore the effect of computerization on productivity and output growth using data from 527 large US firms over 1987-1994. We find that computerization makes a contribution to measured productivity and output growth in the short term (using one year differences) that is consistent with normal returns to computer investments. However, the productivity and output contributions associated with computerization are up to five times greater over long periods (using five to seven year differences). The results suggest that the observed contribution of computerization is accompanied by relatively large and time-consuming investments in complementary inputs, such as organizational capital, that may be omitted in conventional calculations of productivity. The large long-run contribution of computers and their associated complements that we uncover may partially explain the subsequent investment surge in computers in the late 1990s.

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As a factor influencing productivity, a country’s own research and development to generate new technology is more important than that of the average foreign country. It is generally difficult to separate the effect of importing intermediate goods with embodied technology from the effect of other channels of international technology transmission. According to this study, international trade contributes 20 percent of the total effect on productivity from foreign research and development investments.

I discuss the concept and empirical importance of intemational technology diffusion from the point of view of recent work on endogenous technological change. In this literature, technologyis viewed as technological knowledge. I first review the maj or concepts, and how intemational technology diffusion relates to other factors affecting economic growth in open economies. The following main section of the paper provides a review of recent empirical results on (i) basic results in intemational technology diffusion; (ii) the importance of specific channels of diffusion, in particular trade and foreign direct investment; (iii) the spatial distribution of technological knowledge, and (iv) other issues.

The threat of climate change, potentially produced by the growing accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere, has led to an increasing number of empirical models for climate change policy analysis. Numerous modeling studies have shown the sensitivity of midand long-run climate change mitigation cost and benefit projections to assumptions about technology. Technological change is in general considered to be a non-economic, exogenous variable in energy-economy models. Economic activities and policies have then no impact on research, development, and diffusion of new technologies. However, there is overwhelming evidence that technological change is not an exogenous variable, but to an important degree endogenous, induced by needs and pressures. Hence, a new generation of environmental-economic models treats technological change as endogenous, i.e. responding to socioeconomic (policy) variables, e.g. prices, investment in R&D, or cumulative production.

Marie Thursby, and an anonymous referee. Thanks also to Christian Langer for providing the data on trade flows, to Michael Craw for the US import input-output data, and to Jonathan Putnam for his help in obtaining the technology flow matrix used in the paper.

A satisfactory account of the postwar growth experience of the United States should be able to come to terms with the following three facts: (1) Since the early 1970's there has been a slump in the advance of productivity. (2) The price of new equipment has fallen steadily over the postwar period. (3) Since the mid-1970's the skill premium has risen. Variants of Solow's (1960) vintage-capital model can go a long way toward explaining these facts, as this paper shows. In brief, the explanations are: (1) Productivity slowed down because the implementation of information technologies was both costly and slow. (2) Technological advance in the capital goods sector has lead to a decline in equipment prices. (3) The skill premium rose because the new, more efficient capital is complementary with skilled labor and/or because the use of skilled labor facilitates the adoption of new technologies.

The relationship between technological change and environmental policy has received increasing attention from scholars and policy makers alike over the past ten years. This is partly because the environmental impacts of social activity are significantly affected by technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions themselves create new constraints and incentives that affect the process of technological developments. Our central purpose in this article is to provide environmental economists with a useful guide to research on technological change and the analytical tools that can be used to explore further the interaction between technology and the environment. In Part 1 of the article, we provide an overview of analytical frameworks for investigating the economics of technological change, highlighting key issues for the researcher. In Part 2, we turn our attention to theoretical analysis of the effects of environmental policy on technological change, and in Part 3, we focus on issues related to the empirical analysis of technology innovation and diffusion. Finally, we conclude in Part 4 with some additional suggestions for research

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