World Technology Usage Lags

We present evidence on the differences in the intensity with which ten major technologies are used in 185 countries across the world. We do so by calculating how many years ago these technologies were used in the U.S. at the same intensity as they are used in the countries in our sample. We denote these time lags as technology usage lags and compare them with lags in real GDP per capita. We find that (i) technology usage lags are large, often comparable to lags in real GDP per capita, (ii) usage lags are highly correlated with lags in per-capita income, and (iii) usage lags are highly correlated across technologies. The productivity differentials between the state of the art technologies that we consider and the ones they replace combined with the usage lags that we document, lead us to infer that technology usage disparities might account for a large part of cross-country TFP differentials.

Improving aid effectiveness in aid-dependent countries : lessons from Zambia

Zambia was a middle-income country when it achieved independence from Great Britain in 1964. After decades of international aid Zambia has become a low-income country, and its per capita GDP is only now returning to the levels it had reached over forty years ago. While aid is far from the only variable at work in Zambia's development, its impact has been questionable. This paper examines the issue of aid effectiveness in Zambia, especially in terms of how the incentive structure faced by donors may lead to decreased accountability and inadequate concern for long-term outcomes, rendering aid less beneficial. The paper concludes by proposing a revised approach to the provision and use of international aid in Zambia, as well as in other aid-dependent countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.Aid effectiveness, Zambia, donors, projects, aid incentives.

Groups of prime-power order with a small second derived quotient

For odd primes we prove some structure theorems for finite $p$-groups $G$, such that $G''\neq 1$ and $|G'/G''|=p^3$. Building on results of Blackburn and Hall, it is shown that \lcs G3 is a maximal subgroup of $G'$, the group $G$ has a central decomposition into two simpler subgroups, and, moreover, $G'$ has one of two isomorphism types.Comment: 16 page

Why is productivity procyclical? Why do we care?

Productivity rises in booms and falls in recessions. There are four main explanations for this procyclical productivity: (i) procyclical technology shocks, (ii) widespread imperfect competition and increasing returns, (iii) variable utilization of inputs over the cycle, and (iv) resource reallocations. Recent macroeconomic literature views this stylized fact of procyclical productivity as an essential feature of business cycles because each explanation has important implications for macroeconomic modeling. In this paper, we discuss empirical methods for assessing the importance of these four explanations. We provide microfoundations for our preferred approach of estimating an explicitly first-order approximation to the production function, using a theoretically motivated proxy for utilization. When we implement this approach, we find that variable utilization and resource reallocations are particularly important in explaining procyclical productivity. We also argue that the reallocation effects that we identify are not "biases" -- they reflect changes in an economy’s ability to produce goods and services for final consumption from given primary inputs of capital and labor. Thus, from a normative viewpoint, reallocations are significant for welfare; from a positive viewpoint, they constitute potentially important amplification and propagation mechanisms for macroeconomic modeling.Productivity ; Business cycles

The Chronicle [February 11, 1997]

The Chronicle, February 11, 1997https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/chron/4243/thumbnail.jp