Quarterly Journal of Economics articles from August 1 1993

Quarterly Journal of Economics archives from August 1 1993

The O-ring theory of economic development.
August 1, 1993... Many production processes consist of a series of tasks, mistakes in any of which can dramatically reduce the product's value. The space shuttle Challenger had thousands of components: it exploded because it was launched at a temperature that...

Geographic localization of knowledge spillovers as evidenced by patent citations.
August 1, 1993... The last decade has seen the development of a significant body of empirical research on R&D spillovers.(1) Generally speaking, this research has shown that the productivity of firms or industries is related to their R&D spending, and also to the...

Corruption.
August 1, 1993... I. INTRODUCTION We define government corruption as the sale by government officials of government property for personal gain. For example, government officials often collect bribes for providing permits and licenses, for giving passage through...

Workings of a city: location, education, and production.
August 1, 1993... INTRODUCTION Every city, no matter how small, is in fact divided into two; one the city of the rich, the other the city of the poor [Plato, The Republic]. In most cities people with high-skill, high-wage jobs live in select areas or suburbs,...

Equalizing exchange: trade liberalization and income convergence.
August 1, 1993... I. INTRODUCTION In 1969 Arghiri Emmanuel wrote about the "unequal exchange" that he believed was brought about by the "imperialism of trade."(1) This paper provides evidence that movement toward free trade may actually have just the opposite...

Population growth and technological change: one million B.C. to 1990.
August 1, 1993... Models of endogenous technological change, such as Aghion and Howitt [1992] and Grossman and Helpman [1991], typically imply that high population spurs technological change. This implication flows naturally from the nonrivalry of technology. As...

Finance and growth: Schumpeter might be right. (Joseph Schumpeter)
August 1, 1993... In 1911 Joseph Schumpeter argued that the services provided by financial intermediaries--mobilizing savings, evaluating projects, managing risk, monitoring managers, and facilitating transactions--are essential for technological innovation and...

Transitional dynamics in two-sector models of endogenous growth.
August 1, 1993... I. INTRODUCTION The transitional dynamics of two-sector models of endogenous growth are not well understood. Following the work of Lucas [1988], much of the recent endogenous growth literature deals with economies with two capital goods. One...

Substitution and complementarity in endogenous innovation.
August 1, 1993... I. INTRODUCTION Recent models of endogenous innovation, e.g., Aghion and Howitt [1992], Grossman and Helpman [1991a], and Romer [1990], embody the Schumpeterian view of innovation as a process of creative destruction, in which new products...

Capital formation and economic growth in China.
August 1, 1993... I. INTRODUCTION The economic development strategy of the People's Republic of China during the three decades beginning in the early 1950s is characterized by a high rate of capital accumulation at the expense of consumption and the promotion...

Does history matter only when it matters little? The case of city-industry location.
August 1, 1993... I. INTRODUCTION The tendency of different firms within an industry to cluster together has been noted at least since Marshall [1961 (1890)], for whom this tendency was a powerful testament to the existence of economies of agglomeration....