R&D Characteristics, Innovation Spillover, and Technology-Driven Business Cycles

Abstract

This paper shows that technology shocks have the largest impact when industries adopt innovations of other industries at a high rate, if costs of adopting technologies and adjusting R&D expenditures are low, and if innovators face more competition. It is not the level but the spillover of innovations across industries that is key for these results. Under the conditions mentioned above, R&D becomes less procyclical and smoother yet R&D-driven innovations have a larger impact on output since they spillover at a higher rate. These inferences follow from a general equilibrium framework describing a real economy with endogenous growth.