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The distribution of technological progress

Carnabuci, Gianluca

In: Empirical Economics, 2013, vol. 44, no. 3, p. 1143-1154

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    Title
    • The distribution of technological progress
    Author
    • Carnabuci, Gianluca. University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland
    Document Type
    • Postprint
    OAI-PMH Identifier
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:313658
    Summary
    The size distribution of the domains of US-patented technological knowledge obeys an exponential law, revealing a disproportionable concentration of progress among larger domains. Our analyses suggest that this phenomenon is explained by a combination of two factors. First, domains' trajectories of growth have inherently different potentials. Second, differences in domains' potentials are magnified by a mechanism—domains' self-hybridization—endogenous to the process of knowledge growth. Our results show that in addition to being stable, the observed distribution of technological progress is likely to arise under very general conditions