MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02676cam a22003137a 4500
001 2005617179
003 DLC
005 20100902115430.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 050407s2005 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2005617179
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dDLC
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aSkinner, Jonathan.
245 10 $aTechnology adoption from hybrid corn to beta blockers$h[electronic resource] /$cJonathan Skinner, Douglas Staiger.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2005.
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 11251
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 4/7/2005.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"In his classic 1957 study of hybrid corn, Griliches emphasized the importance of economic incentives and profitability in the adoption of new technology, and this focus has been continued in the economics literature. But there is a distinct literature with roots in sociology emphasizing the structure of organizations, informal networks, and "change agents." We return to a forty-year-old debate between Griliches and the sociologists by considering state-level factors associated with the adoption of a variety of technological innovations: hybrid corn and tractors in the first half of the 20th century, computers in the 1990s, and the treatment of heart attacks during the last decade. First, we find that some states consistently adopted new effective technology, whether hybrid corn, tractors, or effective treatments for heart attacks such as Beta Blockers. Second, the adoption of these new highly effective technologies was closely associated with social capital and state-level 1928 high school graduation rates, but not per capita income, density, or (in the case of Beta Blockers) expenditures on heart attack patients. Economic models are useful in identifying why some regions are more likely to adopt early, but sociological barriers -- perhaps related to a lack of social capital or informational networks -- can potentially explain why other regions lag far behind"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
650 0 $aTechnological innovations$xEconomic aspects$xMathematical models.
650 0 $aDiffusion of innovations$xMathematical models.
700 1 $aStaiger, Douglas.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 11251.
856 40 $uhttp://papers.nber.org/papers/W11251