This setting lets you change the way you view articles. You can choose to have articles open in a dialog window, a new tab, or directly in the same window.
Open in Dialog
Open in New Tab
Open in same window

American Economic Review: Vol. 93 No. 3 (June 2003)

AER Volume. 93, Issue 3 | leftPrevious ArticleNext Articleright

Expand

Quick Tools:

Print Article Summary Email Link to this Article Export Citation
Sign up for Email Alerts Follow us on Twitter

Explore:

AER - All Issues

AER Forthcoming Articles

A Theory of Defensive Skill-Biased Innovation and Globalization

Article Citation

Thoenig, Mathias, and Thierry Verdier. 2003. "A Theory of Defensive Skill-Biased Innovation and Globalization ." The American Economic Review, 93(3): 709-728.

DOI: 10.1257/000282803322157052

Abstract

This paper considers a dynamic model of innovations in which firms can endogenously bias the direction of technological change. Both in a North-North and North-South context, we show that, when globalization triggers an increased threat of technological leapfrogging or imitation, firms tend to respond to that threat by biasing the direction of their innovations towards skilled-labor-intensive technologies. We show that this process of defensive skill-biased innovations generates an increase in wage inequalities in both regions. We then discuss suggestive empirical evidence of the existence of defensive skill-biased technical change.

Article Full-Text Access

Full-text Article

Authors

Thoenig, Mathias
Verdier, Thierry


American Economic Review



AEA Member Login:


Quick Tools:

Email Link to this Issue

Sign up for Email Alerts

Follow us on Twitter

Subscription Information
(Institutional Administrator Access)

Explore:

AER - Forthcoming Articles

AEA Journals

Virtual Field Journals

AEAweb | AEA Journals | Contact Us