Catch-up and Fall-back through Innovation and Imitation / Jess Benhabib, Jesse Perla, Christopher Tonetti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Benhabib, Jess.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Perla, Jesse.

Tonetti, Christopher.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w18091.

NBER working paper series no. w18091

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2012.

Summary:

Will fast growing emerging economies sustain rapid growth rates until they "catch-up" to the technology frontier? Are there incentives for some developed countries to free-ride off of innovators and optimally "fallback" relative to the frontier? This paper models agents growing as a result of investments in innovation and imitation. Imitation facilitates technology diffusion, with the productivity of imitation modeled by a catch-up function that increases with distance to the frontier. The resulting equilibrium is an endogenous segmentation between innovators and imitators, where imitating agents optimally choose to "catch-up" or "fall-back" to a productivity ratio below the frontier.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2012.