Diego Comin
Associate Professor of Business Administration
Diego Comin is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at HBS since 2007. He received his B.A. in Economics in 1995 from the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain and his PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 2000. Between 2000 and 2007, Comin has been Assistant Professor of Economics at New York University. He is also Research Fellow at the Center for Economic policy Research and Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Economic Fluctuations and Growth Program. Comin has also been fellow for the INET and Gates foundations and consultant for the World Bank, IMF, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Citibank, and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) of the government of Japan.
Comin works on macroeconomics broadly understood. Part of his research consists on studying the process of technological change and technology diffusion both across countries and over time. A second avenue of Comin’s work studies the sources and propagation mechanisms of fluctuations at high and medium term frequencies. A third line of research pursued by Comin has explored the evolution of firm dynamics and their implications for the evolution of the US economy. His work has been published mainly in academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the American Economic Journal, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Economic Growth.
Comin teaches his elective course (Drivers of Competitiveness) in the MBA program and also a module in the executive program (Program for Leadership Development). For four years, Comin has taught in the first year of the MBA year the required course Business Government and the International economy (BGIE). He has also designed and led immersion programs in Peru and Malaysia.
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Article
| Harvard Business Review
|
How Early Adoption Has Increased Wealth--Until Now
Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn
Societies that are better at utilizing tools are likely to be more productive. The authors have studied when 161 countries adopted 104 technologies over the past 200 years, and they conclude that profound economic advantages-as measured by per capita income-accrue to early adopters of technology.
Keywords: Technology Adoption;
Wealth;
Development Economics;
Performance Productivity;
Competitive Advantage;
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Article
| NBER Macroeconomics Annual
|
Technology Diffusion and Postwar Growth
Diego A. Comin and Bart Hobijn
In the aftermath of World War II, the world's economies exhibited very different rates of economic recovery. We provide evidence that those countries that caught up the most with the U.S. in the postwar period are those that saw an acceleration in the speed of adopting new technologies. This acceleration is correlated with the incidence of U.S. economic aid and technical assistance in the same period. We interpret this as supportive of the interpretation that technology transfers from the U.S. to Western European countries and Japan were an important factor in driving growth in these recipient countries during the postwar decades.
Keywords: Hardware;
Country;
Business Cycles;
Globalized Economies and Regions;
Economic Growth;
Welfare or Wellbeing;
War;
Technology Industry;
United States;
Japan;
Europe;
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Article
| American Economic Review
|
An Exploration of Technology Diffusion
Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn
We develop a model that, at the aggregate level, is similar to the one sector neoclassical growth model, while, at the disaggregate level, has implications for the path of observable measures of technology adoption. We estimate our model using data on the diffusion of 15 technologies in 166 countries over the last two centuries. We evaluate the implications of our estimates for aggregate TFP and per capita income. Our results reveal that, on average, countries have adopted technologies 47 years after their invention. There is substantial variation across technologies and countries. Over the past two centuries, newer technologies have been adopted faster than old ones. The cross-country variation in the adoption of technologies accounts for at least a quarter of per capita income differences.
Keywords: Technology Adoption;
Innovation and Invention;
Income Characteristics;
Macroeconomics;
Business Model;
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Article
| American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
|
Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 B.C.?
Diego A. Comin, Bill Easterly and Erick Gong
We assemble a dataset on technology adoption in 1000 B.C., 0 A.D., and 1500 A.D. for the predecessors to today's nation states. We find that this very old history of technology adoption is surprisingly significant for today's national development outcomes. Our strong and robust results are for 1500 A.D. determining per capita income today. We find technological persistence across long epochs: from 1000 B.C. to 0 A.D., from 0 A.D. to 1500 A.D., and from 1500 A..D to the present. Although the data allow only some suggestive tests of rival hypotheses to explain long-run technological persistence, we find the evidence to be most consistent with a model of endogenous technology adoption where the cost of adopting new technologies declines sufficiently with the current level of adoption. The evidence is less consistent with a dominant role for population as predicted by the semi-endogenous growth models or for country-level factors like culture, genes, or institutions.
Keywords: Cost Accounting;
Technology;
Technology Adoption;
Growth and Development;
Adoption;
Business Strategy;
Cost;
Cost Management;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Culture;
Technology Industry;
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Journal Article
| Journal of Monetary Economics
|
A Theory of Growth and Volatility at the Aggregate and Firm Level
Diego A. Comin and Sunil Mulani
This paper presents an endogenous growth model that explains the evolution of the first and second moments of productivity growth at the aggregate and firm level during the post-war period. Growth is driven by the development of both (i) idiosyncratic R&D innovations and (ii) general innovations that can be freely adopted by many firms. Firm-level volatility is affected primarily by the Schumpeterian dynamics associated with the development of R&D innovations. On the other hand, the variance of aggregate productivity growth is determined mainly by the arrival rate of general innovations. Ceteris paribus, the share of resources spent on development of general innovations, increases with the stability of the market share of the industry leader. As market shares become less persistent, the model predicts an endogenous shift in the allocation of resources from the development of general innovations to the development of R&D innovations. This results in an increase in R&D, an increase in firm-level volatility, and a decline in aggregate volatility. The effect on productivity growth is ambiguous. On the empirical side, this paper documents an upward trend in the instability of market shares. It shows that firm volatility is positively associated with R&D spending, and that R&D is negatively associated with the correlation of growth between sectors which leads to a decline in aggregate volatility.
Keywords: Volatility;
Microeconomics;
Innovation and Invention;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Resource Allocation;
Performance Productivity;
Mathematical Methods;
Research and Development;
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Journal Article
| Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports
|
Testing the Commitment Hypothesis in Contractual Settings: Evidence from Soccer
Oriol Carbonell and Diego A. Comin
This paper designs and implements an empirical test to discern whether the parties to a contract are able to commit not to renegotiate their agreement. We study optimal contracts with and without commitment and derive an exclusion restriction that is useful to identify the relevant commitment scenario. The empirical analysis takes advantage of a data set on Spanish soccer player contracts. Our test rejects the commitment hypothesis. We argue that our conclusions should hold a fortiori in many other economic environments.
Keywords: Contracts;
Agreements and Arrangements;
Research;
Sports Industry;
Spain;
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Article
| Review of Economics and Statistics
|
Lobbies and Technology Diffusion
Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn
This paper explores whether lobbies slow down technology diffusion. To answer this question, we exploit the differential effect of various institutional attributes that should affect the costs of erecting barriers when the new technology has a technologically close predecessor but not otherwise. We implement this test using a data set that covers the diffusion of 20 technologies for 23 countries over the past two centuries. We find that each of the relevant institutional variables that affect the costs of erecting barriers has a significantly larger effect on the diffusion of technologies with a competing predecessor technology than when no such technology exists. These effects are quantitatively important. Thus, we conclude that lobbies are an important barrier to technology adoption and to development.
Keywords: Technology Adoption;
Cost;
Problems and Challenges;
Knowledge Dissemination;
Competition;
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Article
| Empirica
|
On the Integration of Growth and Business Cycles
Diego Comin
Keywords: Integration;
Growth and Development;
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Article
| Journal of Monetary Economics
|
Turbulent Firms, Turbulent Wages?
Diego A. Comin, Erica L. Groshen and Bess Rabin
Has greater turbulence among firms fueled rising wage instability in the U.S.? Gottschalk and Moffitt [1994] find that rising earnings instability was responsible for one third to one half of the rise in wage inequality during the 1980s. These growing transitory fluctuations remain largely unexplained. To help fill this gap, this paper further documents the recent rise in transitory fluctuations in compensation and investigates its linkage to the concurrent rise in volatility of firm performance documented by Comin and Mulani [2006]. We find strong support for the hypothesis that rising high-frequency turbulence in the sales of large publicly-traded U.S. firms over the past three decades has raised their workers' high-frequency wage volatility. The evidence comes from two data sets: the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (detailed longitudinal information on workers), and COMPUSTAT (detailed firm information, plus average wage and employment levels). Through controls and instrumental variable probes, we rule out straightforward compositional churning as an explanation for the link between firm sales and wage volatility. We also observe that the relationship between sales and wage volatility at the firm level is stronger since 1980, is present only in large companies and is stronger in services than in manufacturing companies.
Keywords: Wages;
Production;
Business Earnings;
Fluctuation;
Performance;
Volatility;
Relationships;
Sales;
Business Ventures;
United States;
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Article
| Journal of Economic Growth
|
Technology Usage Lags
Diego A. Comin, Bart Hobijn and Emilie Rovito
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.
Keywords: Technology Adoption;
Global Range;
Economy;
Relationships;
Performance Productivity;
United States;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., Bart Hobijn, and Emilie Rovito. " Technology Usage Lags." Journal of Economic Growth 13, no. 4 (December 2008).
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Article
| Journal of Technology Transfer
|
A New Approach to Measuring Technology with an Application to the Shape of Diffusion Curves
Diego Comin, Bart Hobijn and Emilie Rovito
This paper documents the sources and measures of the cross-country historical adoption technology (CHAT) data set that covers the diffusion of about 115 technologies in over 150 countries over the last 200 years. We use this comprehensive data set to explore the shape of the diffusion curves. Our main finding is that, once the intensive margin is measured, technologies do not diffuse in a logistic way.
Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Measurement and Metrics;
Technology Adoption;
Logistics;
Knowledge Dissemination;
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Article
| American Economic Review
|
Medium-term Business Cycles
Diego Comin and Mark Gertler
Over the postwar period, many industrialized countries have experienced significant medium-frequency oscillations between periods of robust growth versus relative stagnation. Conventional business cycle filters, however, tend to sweep these oscillations into the trend. In this paper we explore whether they may, instead, reflect a persistent response of economic activity to the high-frequency fluctuations normally associated with the cycle. We define as the medium-term cycle the sum of the high and medium-frequency variation in the data, and then show that these kinds of fluctuations are substantially more volatile and persistent than are the conventional measures. These fluctuations, further, feature significant procyclical movements in both embodied and disembodied technological change, and research and development (R&D), as well as the efficiency and intensity of resource utilization. We then develop a model of medium-term business cycles. A virtue of the framework is that, in addition to offering a unified approach to explaining the high- and medium-frequency variation in the data, it fully endogenizes the movements in productivity that appear central to the persistence of these fluctuations. For comparison, we also explore how well an exogenous productivity model can explain the facts.
Keywords: Business Cycles;
Fluctuation;
Technology;
Research and Development;
Resource Allocation;
Framework;
Trends;
Performance Efficiency;
Performance Productivity;
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Article
| Review of Economics and Statistics
|
Diverging Trends in Macro and Micro Volatility
Diego Comin and Sunil Mulani
This paper documents the diverging trends in volatility of the growth rate of sales at the aggregate and firm level. We establish that the upward trend in micro volatility is not simply driven by a compositional bias in the sample studied. We argue that this new fact sheds some shadows on the proposed explanations for the decline in aggregate volatility and that, given the symmetry of the diverging trends at the micro and macro level, a common explanation is likely. We conclude by describing one such theory.
Keywords: Volatility;
Mathematical Methods;
Theory;
Sales;
Growth and Development;
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Article
| Topics in Macroeconomics
|
Using Investment Behavior to Assess the Pervasiveness of Price Mismeasurement
Diego Comin
Keywords: Investment;
Behavior;
Measurement and Metrics;
Price;
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Article
| NBER Macroeconomics Annual
|
The Rise in Firm-Level Volatility: Causes and Consequences
Diego Comin and Thomas Philippon
We document that the recent decline in aggregate volatility has been accompanied by a large increase in firm level risk. The negative relationship between firm and aggregate risk seems to be present across industries in the US, and across OECD countries. Firm volatility increases after deregulation. Firm volatility is linked to research and development spending as well as access to external financing. Further, R&D intensity is also associated with lower correlation of sectoral growth with the rest of the economy.
Keywords: Volatility;
Risk Management;
Relationships;
Research and Development;
Financing and Loans;
Industry Growth;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Economy;
Outcome or Result;
United States;
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Article
| Journal of Economic Growth
|
R&D: A Small Contribution to Productivity Growth
Diego Comin
In this paper I evaluate the contribution of R&D investments to productivity growth. The basis for the analysis are the free entry condition and the fact that most R&D innovations are embodied. Free entry yields a relationship between the resources devoted to R&D and the growth rate of technology. Since innovators are small, this relationship is not directly affected by the size of R&D externalities, or the presence of aggregate diminishing returns in R&D after controlling for the growth rate of output and the interest rate. The embodiment of R&D-driven innovations bounds the size of the production externalities. The resulting contribution of R&D to productivity growth in the US is smaller than three to five tenths of one percentage point. This constitutes an upper bound for the case where innovators internalize the consequences of their R&D investments on the cost of conducting future innovations. From a normative perspective, this analysis implies that, if the innovation technology takes the form assumed in the literature, the actual US R&D intensity may be the socially optimal.
Keywords: Research and Development;
Investment;
Interest Rates;
Performance Productivity;
Technological Innovation;
Perspective;
United States;
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Article
| Journal of Monetary Economics
|
Cross-country Technological Adoption: Making the Theories Face the Facts
Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn
We examine the diffusion of more than twenty technologies across twenty-three of the world's leading industrial economies. Our evidence covers major technology classes such as textile production, steel manufacture, communications, information technology, transportation, and electricity for the period 1788-2001. We document the common patterns observed in the diffusion of this broad range of technologies. Our results suggest a pattern of trickle-down diffusion that is remarkably robust across technologies. Most of the technologies that we consider originate in advanced economies and are adopted there first. Subsequently, they trickle down to countries that lag economically. Our panel data analysis indicates that the most important determinants of the speed at which a country adopts technologies are the country's human capital endowment, type of government, degree of openness to trade, and adoption of predecessor technologies. We also find that the overall rate of diffusion has increased markedly since World War II because of the convergence in these variables across countries.
Keywords: Technology Adoption;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Development Economics;
Human Capital;
Government and Politics;
Trade;
Production;
Information Technology;
Steel Industry;
Communications Industry;
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Comment
| Review of Economic Dynamics
|
Comment to James Bessen's 'Technology Adoption Costs and Productivity Growth: The 70s as a Technological Revolution'
Diego Comin
Keywords: History;
Cost;
Technology Adoption;
Growth and Development;
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Article
| Gaceta Sanitaria
|
Convergence in Health: Dream or Reality?
Diego Comin
Keywords: Health;
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Working Paper
| 2013
If Technology Has Arrived Everywhere, Why Has Income Diverged?
Diego A. Comin and Marti Mestieri Ferrer
We study the lags with which new technologies are adopted across countries, and their long-run penetration rates once they are adopted. Using data from the last two centuries, we document two new facts: there has been convergence in adoption lags between rich and poor countries, while there has been divergence in penetration rates. Using a model of adoption and growth, we show that these changes in the pattern of technology diffusion account for 80% of the Great Income Divergence between rich and poor countries since 1820.
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Working Paper
| 2012
The Spatial Diffusion of Technology
Diego A. Comin, Mikhail Dmitriev and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
We empirically study technology diffusion across countries and over time. We find significant evidence that technology diffuses slower to locations that are farther away from adoption leaders. This effect is stronger across rich countries and also when measuring distance along the south-north dimension. A simple theory of human interactions can account for these empirical findings. The theory suggests that the effect of distance should vanish over time, a hypothesis that we confirm in the data and that distinguishes technology from other flows like goods or investments. We then structurally estimate the model. The parameter governing the frequency of interactions is larger for newer and network-based technologies, and for the median technology, the frequency of interactions decays by 73% every 1000 kms. Overall, we document the significant role that geography plays in determining technology diffusion across countries.
Keywords: Economic Growth;
Knowledge Dissemination;
Technology Adoption;
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2009
Technology Innovation and Diffusion as Sources of Output and Asset Price Fluctuations
Diego A. Comin, Mark Gertler and Ana Maria Santacreu
We develop a model in which innovations in an economy's growth potential are an important driving force of the business cycle. The framework shares the emphasis of the recent "new shock" literature on revisions of beliefs about the future as a source of fluctuations, but differs by tieing these beliefs to fundamentals of the evolution of the technology frontier. An important feature of the model is that the process of moving to the frontier involves costly technology adoption. In this way, news of improved growth potential has a positive effect on current hours. As we show, the model also has reasonable implications for stock prices. We estimate our model for data post-1984 and show that the innovations shock accounts for nearly a third of the variation in output at business cycle frequencies. The estimated model also accounts reasonably well for the large gyration in stock prices over this period. Finally, the endogenous adoption mechanism plays a significant role in amplifying other shocks.
Keywords: Business Cycles;
Economic Growth;
Asset Pricing;
Technological Innovation;
Mathematical Methods;
System Shocks;
Technology Adoption;
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2010
Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries
Diego A. Comin, Norman Loayza, Farooq Pasha and Luis Serven
We build a two country asymmetric DSGE model with two features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. We calibrate the model to match the Mexico-U.S. trade and FDI flows. The model is able to explain the following stylized facts: (i) U.S. and Mexican output co-move more than consumption; (ii) U.S. shocks have a larger effect on Mexico than in the U.S.; (iii) U.S. business cycles lead over medium term fluctuations in Mexico; (iv) Mexican consumption is more volatile than output.
Keywords: Business Cycles;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Trade;
International Finance;
Foreign Direct Investment;
Mathematical Methods;
Mexico;
United States;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., Norman Loayza, Farooq Pasha, and Luis Serven. " Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 10–029, October 2009. (Revise and resubmit at the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.)
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Other Unpublished Work
| 2007
Implementing Technology
Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn
We introduce a tractable model of endogenous growth in which the returns to innovation are determined by the technology adoption decisions of the users of new technologies. Technology adoption involves an implementation investment that determines the initial productivity of a new technology. After implementation, learning increases the productivity of a technology to its full potential. In this framework, implementation enhances growth, while growth increases obsolescence and reduces implementation. In a calibrated version of our model, the optimal policy involves a subsidy to capital and to implementation and a R&D tax. This policy would lead to a welfare improvement of 7.6 percent. Out of steady-state analysis yields that the transitional dynamics of the detrended variables after a shock to capital are very similar to the dynamics of the neoclassical growth model, but transitory shocks have permanent effects on the level of productivity.
Keywords: Learning;
Investment;
Investment Return;
Innovation and Invention;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Performance Productivity;
Technology Adoption;
Citation: Comin, Diego, and Bart Hobijn. " Implementing Technology." November 2007. (Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Economic Theory.)
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2009
When Does Domestic Saving Matter for Economic Growth?
Philippe Aghion, Diego A. Comin, Peter Howitt and Isabel Tecu
Can a country grow faster by saving more? We address this question both theoretically and empirically. In our theoretical model, growth results from innovations that allow local sectors to catch up with frontier technology. In poor countries, catching up requires the cooperation of a foreign investor who is familiar with the frontier technology and a domestic entrepreneur who is familiar with local conditions. In such a country, domestic saving matters for innovation, and therefore growth, because it enables the local entrepreneur to put equity into this cooperative venture, which mitigates an agency problem that would otherwise deter the foreign investor from participating. In rich countries, domestic entrepreneurs are already familiar with frontier technology and therefore do not need to attract foreign investment to innovate, so domestic saving does not matter for growth. A cross-country regression shows that lagged savings is positively associated with productivity growth in poor countries but not in rich countries. The same result is found when the regression is run on data generated by a calibrated version of our theoretical model.
Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies;
Economic Growth;
Entrepreneurship;
Foreign Direct Investment;
Saving;
Technological Innovation;
Mathematical Methods;
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Working Paper
| 2012
An Exploration of Luxury Hotels in Tanzania
Diego A. Comin
Tourism is a tradable service activity that could allow some African countries to generate significant growth. Tanzania, given its unique natural assets, is an ideal candidate. However, despite being so richly endowed in touristic resources, Tanzania receives very few tourists and revenues from tourism. To explore the determinants of this performance, I conduct an international survey for upscale hotel managers to measure supply-side constraints on the operation of hotels. The survey reveals that hotels in the safari area in Tanzania are more expensive than comparable hotels, and that this difference in price cannot be accounted for by differences in supply constraints. Further, using cross-country panel data, I show that upscale hotel prices account for a significant fraction of cross-country differences in tourists.
Keywords: Natural Environment;
Business Ventures;
Luxury;
Revenue;
Price;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Accommodations Industry;
Tourism Industry;
Tanzania;
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2009
The CHAT Dataset
Diego A. Comin and Bart Hobijn
This note accompanies the Cross‐country Historical Adoption of Technology (CHAT) dataset. CHAT is an unbalanced panel dataset with information on the adoption of over 100 technologies in more than 150 countries since 1800. The data is available for download at: http://www.nber.org/data/chat. We discuss the main aim of CHAT, its scope and limitations, as well as several ways in which we have used the data so far and ways to potentially use the data for other research. Suggested acknowledgment: If you use the CHAT dataset for your research, please include the following citation: "Our technology measures come from the CHAT data set which is an extension of the data set described in Comin and Hobijn (2004)."
Keywords: Geographic Location;
History;
Technology Adoption;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., and Bart Hobijn. " The CHAT Dataset." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 10–035, November 2009.
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Other Unpublished Work
| 2007
Five Facts You Need to Know about Technology Diffusion
Diego Comin, Bart Hobijn and Emilie Rovito
Keywords: Technology Adoption;
Citation: Comin, Diego, Bart Hobijn, and Emilie Rovito. "Five Facts You Need to Know about Technology Diffusion." July 2007.
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Chapter
| Handbook of Economic Growth
Technology Diffusion: Measurement, Causes and Consequences
Diego A. Comin and Marti Mestieri
This chapter discusses different approaches pursued to explore three broad questions related to technology diffusion: what general patterns characterize the diffusion of technologies, and how have they changed over time; what are the key drivers of technology, and what are the macroeconomic consequences of technology. We prioritize in our discussion unified approaches to these three questions that are based on direct measures of technology.
Citation: Comin, Diego A., and Marti Mestieri. "Technology Diffusion: Measurement, Causes and Consequences." In Handbook of Economic Growth, edited by Philippe Aghion, and Steven Durlauf. Elsevier, forthcoming.
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Chapter
| Handbook of Economic Growth
| Forthcoming
The Intensive Margin of Technology Adoption
Diego A. Comin
We present a tractable model for analyzing the relationship between economic growth and the intensive and extensive margins of technology adoption. The "extensive" margin refers to the timing of a country's adoption of a new technology; the "intensive" margin refers to how many units are adopted (for a given size economy). At the aggregate level, our model is isomorphic to a neoclassical growth model, while at the microeconomic level it features adoption of firms at the extensive and the intensive margin. Based on a data set of 15 technologies and 166 countries our estimations of the model yield four main findings: (1) there are large cross-country differences in the intensive margin of adoption; (2) differences in the intensive margin vary substantially across technologies; (3) the cross-country dispersion of adoption lags has declined over time while the cross-country dispersion in the intensive margin has not; and (4) the cross-country variation in the intensive margin of adoption accounts for more than 40% of the variation in income per capita.
Keywords: Economic Growth;
Microeconomics;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Data and Data Sets;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Relationships;
Technology Adoption;
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Chapter
| Japan's Bubble, Deflation, and Long-term Stagnation
| 2011
An Exploration of the Japanese Slowdown during the 1990s
Diego A. Comin
Why was the 1990s a lost decade for Japan? How is it possible that the Japanese economy stagnated for a decade if none of the shocks that arguably hit the economy seemed to have persisted for much more than three years or so? In this paper I show that the endogenous development and adoption of technologies can propagate these shocks making their effect much more persistent. When feeding the markup shocks observed in Japan during the early 1990s, the model is able to generate time series for output, TFP, employment, consumption and investment that track closely the actual data. In particular, the productivity slowdown in the model is as protracted as in the data. Reassuringly, I also find evidence that, as predicted by the model, the speed of technology diffusion slowed down in Japan during the 1990s and R&D expenditures also stopped growing.
Keywords: Economic Slowdown and Stagnation;
Performance Productivity;
Mathematical Methods;
Research and Development;
Technology Adoption;
Japan;
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Dictionary Entry
| The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
| 2008
Total Factor Productivity
Diego Comin
Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is the portion of output not explained by the amount of inputs used in production. The following definition describes the measurement and importance of TFP for growth, fluctuations and development as well as likely future directions of research.
Keywords: Business Cycles;
Economic Growth;
Measurement and Metrics;
Production;
Performance Productivity;
Research;
Citation: Comin, Diego. " Total Factor Productivity." In The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. 2nd ed. Edited by Steven Derlauf, and Larry Blume. Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
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Chapter
| An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics
| 2004
The Harrod-Domar Model
Diego Comin
Keywords: Mathematical Methods;
Economic Growth;
Development Economics;
Capital;
Citation: Comin, Diego. " The Harrod-Domar Model." In An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics, edited by C. R. Braun, and Julio Segura. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
Malaysia: Standing on a Single Leaf
Diego Comin, Maurice Kuykendoll and Monne Williams
The case discusses the development of palm oil in Malaysia. This experience provides important insights about when and how government intervention can be successful in developing new sectors in the economy.
Keywords: Malaysia;
industrial policy;
Agriculture;
palm oil;
innovation;
plantations;
Citation: Comin, Diego, Maurice Kuykendoll, and Monne Williams. "Malaysia: Standing on a Single Leaf." Harvard Business School Case 713-007, October 2012.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
CoET: Innovation in Africa
Diego Comin, Diana Dimitrova and Yukiko Tsukamoto
Keywords: innovation;
developing countries;
technology commercialization;
entrepreneurship;
Africa;
technology diffusion;
Tanzania;
Citation: Comin, Diego, Diana Dimitrova, and Yukiko Tsukamoto. "CoET: Innovation in Africa." Harvard Business School Case 713-021, September 2012.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2012 version)
Inkaterra
Diego Comin, Rohan Gopaldas and Diego Rehder
The case presents the unique business model of Inkaterra, a leading eco-tourism organization in Peru, and the different strategies the company can pursue to grow. Through the experience of Inkaterra the case studies two general issues. First, it discusses the potential barriers that exist for the development of the tourism sector. Second, it presents the debate of whether governments may want to use tourism as an engine of growth, and if so, what is the best strategy to preserve the environment.
Keywords: Inkaterra;
ecotourism;
tourism;
environment;
Peru;
informal sector;
regulation;
economic development;
bottom of the pyramid;
technology diffusion;
competitiveness;
Business Model;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Natural Environment;
Market Entry and Exit;
Conflict Management;
Tourism Industry;
Peru;
Citation: Comin, Diego, Rohan Gopaldas, and Diego Rehder. " Inkaterra." Harvard Business School Case 713-022, September 2012. (Revised from original September 2012 version.)
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
Egypt: Turbulence, and Transition?
Diego A. Comin, Mohamed Heikal and Adam Said
The case goes over the evolution of politics and institutions in Egypt over the last 50 years. The case provides new insights on the reasons for violent political transitions and also explores the effects of political instability on productivity and competitiveness.
Keywords: institutional change;
military;
competitiveness;
democracy;
revolution;
productivity;
Egypt;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., Mohamed Heikal, and Adam Said. "Egypt: Turbulence, and Transition?" Harvard Business School Case 713-014, August 2012.
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Supplement
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2013
(Revised from original 2012 version)
Malaysia: The Economic Transformation Program (B)
Diego A. Comin and Ku Kok Peng
Keywords: Economic Transformation Program;
productivity growth;
new economic model;
Najiv;
Idris Jala;
Malaysia;
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Case
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2013
(Revised from original 2011 version)
South Africa (A): Stuck in the Middle?
Richard H. K. Vietor and Diego Comin
Fifteen years after ending apartheid, formal unemployment in South Africa was still at 24%. While the country had grown at 4 to 5% annually during the 2000s, the financial crisis set it back by 1 million more unemployed. Moreover, it seemed as if the nation were stuck between low wage and fully developed competitors. The government of Jacob Zuma has just adopted a "New Growth Path," hoping to create several million jobs over the next few years. Both the Finance Minister and the head of the Central Bank support the initiative, but worry how they can sustain fiscal discipline and control inflation, in light of these stimulative policies. Organized labor, meanwhile, has little sympathy for any sort of sacrifice.
Keywords: Financial Crisis;
Inflation and Deflation;
Policy;
Employment;
Wages;
Competition;
South Africa;
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Case
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2012
(Revised from original 2010 version)
China "Unbalanced"
Diego A. Comin and Richard H.K. Vietor
In 2010, Wen Jiabao looked back at the financial crisis with some satisfaction. Using aggressive fiscal and monetary policy, China had weathered the crisis successfully, growing 8.7% annually in 2010. Most of the unemployed workers had returned to work, often demonstrating for higher wages or better working conditions. Wen, however, was really focused on his new development strategy - shifting away from export-led growth to ease domestic and international pressures. But many institutional challenges seemed to hamper domestic demand, and Wen was particularly concerned with pressures from America, on China's policies for trade, exchange rates, energy and investment.
Keywords: Economic Growth;
Financial Crisis;
Trade;
Currency Exchange Rate;
Investment;
Local Range;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Demand and Consumers;
China;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., and Richard H.K. Vietor. China " Unbalanced". Harvard Business School Case 711-010, March 2012. (Revised from original July 2010 version.)
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Teaching Note
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2012
Malaysia IXP: Stuck in the Middle
Diego Comin
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Teaching Note
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2012
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Spain: Can the House Resist the Storm? (TN)
Diego A. Comin
Teaching Note for [709021].
Keywords: Spain;
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Teaching Note
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2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Fraunhofer: Innovation in Germany (TN)
Diego A. Comin and J. Gunnar Trumbull
Teaching Note for 711022.
Keywords: Innovation and Invention;
Germany;
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Teaching Note
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2012
(Revised from original 2010 version)
China "Unbalanced" (TN)
Diego A. Comin and Richard H.K. Vietor
Teaching Note for 711010.
Keywords: Financial Crisis;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Demand and Consumers;
Policy;
Trade;
Currency Exchange Rate;
Energy;
Investment;
China;
United States;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., and Richard H.K. Vietor. China " Unbalanced" (TN). Harvard Business School Teaching Note 711-028, March 2012. (Revised from original September 2010 version.)
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Module Note
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2012
(Revised from original 2012 version)
Drivers of Productivity and Global Competitiveness
Diego Comin
Keywords: Trade;
Performance Productivity;
Global Range;
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Case
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2012
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Spain: Can the House Resist the Storm?
Diego A. Comin
On September 16, 2008, President Rodriguez Zapatero recognized the severity of Spain's macroeconomic situation and clearly pointed to the culprit in front of the Spanish Congress: "Let nobody doubt it; there is already a wide consensus about the origin of the crisis: [It is] in the U.S. and its subprime mortgages." During the last eight years, Spain had gone through a phenomenal expansion that has had many important ingredients: immigration, housing boom, banking and financial market regulation, current account deficit, and productivity growth. This case analyzes how they interacted during the period 2000-2007 and what drove the Spanish recession in 2008.
Keywords: Business Cycles;
Economy;
Financial Crisis;
Macroeconomics;
System Shocks;
Spain;
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Case
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2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Fraunhofer: Innovation in Germany
Diego A. Comin, J. Gunnar Trumbull and Kerry Yang
Fraunhofer is one of the largest applied research organizations in the world. With 17,000 employees and a 1.6 billion euros budget, Fraunhofer has 60 institutes in Germany that cover most fields of science. The case examines the consequences that Fraunhofer has for the competitiveness of the German economy. It also explores whether the organization of R&D is affected by the size distribution of firms as well as by institutions in labor and financial markets.
Keywords: Economy;
Entrepreneurship;
Financial Markets;
Government and Politics;
Labor;
Markets;
Outcome or Result;
Research and Development;
Competitive Strategy;
Germany;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., J. Gunnar Trumbull, and Kerry Yang. " Fraunhofer: Innovation in Germany." Harvard Business School Case 711-022, March 2012. (Revised from original March 2011 version.)
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Case
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2011
(Revised from original 2010 version)
Malaysia: People First?
Diego A. Comin and John Abraham
On March 30, 2010, Prime Minister Najib Razak presented his new economic model (NEM) for Malaysia. With the goal of raising per capita income to over $15,000 by 2020 from the current level of $6,634, the plan included measures to improve human capital, reduce migration and privatize inefficient government linked corporations (GLCs). However, the most controversial part of the NEM was the dismantling of the new economic policy (NEP), an affirmative action program for native Malays that had alleviated racial tensions and reduced inter-racial income inequality over the previous 40 years though, some argued, at the cost of fostering corruption.
Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions;
Problems and Challenges;
Crime and Corruption;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Development Economics;
Emerging Markets;
Transformation;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Wealth and Poverty;
Equality and Inequality;
Malaysia;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., and John Abraham. " Malaysia: People First?" Harvard Business School Case 710-033, September 2011. (Revised from original April 2010 version.)
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Supplement
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2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
South Africa (B): Getting Unstuck?
Richard H. K. Vietor and Diego Comin
15 years after ending apartheid, formal unemployment in South Africa was still at 24%. While the country had grown at 4 to 5% annually during the 2000s, the financial crisis set it back by 1 million more unemployed. Moreover, it seemed as if the nation were stuck between low wage and fully developed competitors. The government of Jacob Zuma has just adopted a "New Growth Path," hoping to create several million jobs over the next few years. Both the Finance Minister and the head of the Central Bank support the initiative, but worry how they can sustain fiscal discipline and control inflation, in light of these stimulative policies. Organized labor, meanwhile, has little sympathy for any sort of sacrifice.
Keywords: Financial Crisis;
Inflation and Deflation;
Policy;
Employment;
Wages;
Competition;
South Africa;
Citation: Vietor, Richard H. K., and Diego Comin. " South Africa (B): Getting Unstuck?" Harvard Business School Supplement 711-085, December 2012. (Revised from original April 2011 version.)
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Supplement
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2011
Fraunhofer: Five Significant Innovations
Diego A. Comin, J. Gunnar Trumbull and Kerry Yang
Keywords: Innovation and Invention;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., J. Gunnar Trumbull, and Kerry Yang. "Fraunhofer: Five Significant Innovations." Harvard Business School Supplement 711-058, March 2011.
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Module Note
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2011
Business Cycles and the New Challenges of Globalization
Diego A. Comin
Business Cycles and the New Challenges of Globalization is one of the core modules in Business Government and the International Economy (BGIE), a course for the required curriculum of the Harvard Business School. BGIE teaches the economic, political and historical context in which businesses operate. The readings and cases in this module have been selected to provide students with two sets of concepts: (i) a framework to understand business cycle fluctuations and how these are propagated both domestically and internationally; and (ii) an exploration of the new challenges of globalization that result from the growth in trade and international capital flows as well as from the ascent of China.
Keywords: Fluctuation;
Business Cycles;
Trade;
Business Education;
Curriculum and Courses;
Capital;
Cash Flow;
Globalization;
Problems and Challenges;
China;
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Teaching Note
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2011
(Revised from original 2010 version)
Malaysia: People First? (TN)
Diego A. Comin
Teaching Note for 710033.
Keywords: Malaysia;
Citation: Comin, Diego A. " Malaysia: People First? (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 711-035, January 2011. (Revised from original October 2010 version.)
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Background Note
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2011
(Revised from original 2009 version)
The Great Moderation, Dead or Alive?
Diego A. Comin
The Great Moderation is a significant decline in the volatility of fluctuations in most macroeconomic variables that the United States and other developed and developing economies have experienced at least since the mid-1980s. This case describes the basic facts, presents contending explanations, and explores the consequences of the Great Moderation for the likely amplitude of future business cycles.
Keywords: Volatility;
Business Cycles;
Macroeconomics;
United States;
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Teaching Note
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2010
Peru IXP (TN)
Diego A. Comin
Keywords: Peru;
Citation: Comin, Diego A. " Peru IXP (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 711-027, September 2010.
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Case
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2010
(Revised from original 2010 version)
China: Getting Richer Still
Diego A. Comin and Richard H. K. Vietor
In the last quarter of 2009, China's GDP growth rate again approached 10%. While the global financial crisis had certainly hurt - causing layoffs of as many as 20 million factory workers - a huge stimulus package on top of continuing domestic demand had restored economic growth from its sharp, export-led stump. Now, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao could return their attention to job growth, income distribution, resource allocation, excessive reserve accumulation and the environment.
Keywords: History;
Resource Allocation;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Social Issues;
Policy;
Business and Government Relations;
Macroeconomics;
Demand and Consumers;
Leading Change;
Economic Growth;
China;
Citation: Comin, Diego A., and Richard H. K. Vietor. "China: Getting Richer Still." Harvard Business School Case 710-050, April 2010. (Revised from original February 2010 version.)
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Background Note
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2010
Central Europe after the Crash: Between Europe and the Euro
Diego A. Comin, Dante Roscini and Elisa Farri
This note briefly reviews the financial crisis in central Europe in late 2008, and summarizes how four central European countries—Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia—have coped with the economic downturn.
Keywords: Economic Slowdown and Stagnation;
Financial Crisis;
Financial Strategy;
Czech Republic;
Hungary;
Poland;
Slovakia;
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