World Technology Usage Lags

27 Pages Posted: 20 Nov 2006 Last revised: 22 Aug 2022

See all articles by Diego Comin

Diego Comin

New York University (NYU) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Bart Hobijn

ASU

Emilie Rovito

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Date Written: November 2006

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

Comin, Diego and Hobijn, Bart and Rovito, Emilie, World Technology Usage Lags (November 2006). NBER Working Paper No. w12677, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=942972

Diego Comin (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Department of Economics ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Bart Hobijn

ASU ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.barthobijn.net

Emilie Rovito

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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New York, NY 10045
United States

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