Demand-driven technical change and productivity growth: theory and evidence from the Energy Policy Act
Giammario Impullitti, Richard Kneller and Danny McGowan
We present novel evidence on the effect of market size on technology adoption and productivity. Our tests exploit a natural experiment in the U.S. corn industry where changes to national energy policy created exogenous increases in demand. Difference-in-difference estimates show that the demand shock caused technical change as corn producers adopted higher quality seeds which in turn raised productivity by 7%. We develop a simple model that formalizes the mechanisms underlying our results. ? 2020 The Editorial Board of The Journal of Industrial Economics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
1 June 2020
The Journal of Industrial Economics 68(2) , pp.328-363, 2020
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joie.12231
This Journal article is published under the centre's Growth programme, Trade programme.