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Title: Big Push in Distorted Economies

Author(s): Francisco J Buera, Hugo Hopenhayn, Yongseok Shin and Nicholas Trachter

Publication Date: March 2021

Keyword(s): Big push, complementarities, industrial policy and Technology adoption

Programme Area(s): Development Economics and Macroeconomics and Growth

Abstract: Why don't poor countries adopt more productive technologies? Is there a role for policies that coordinate technology adoption? To answer these questions, we develop a quantitative model that features complementarity in firms' technology adoption decisions: The gains from adoption are larger when more firms adopt. When this complementarity is strong, multiple equilibria and hence coordination failures are possible. More important, even without equilibrium multiplicity, the model elements responsible for the complementarity can substantially amplify the effect of distortions and policies. In what we call the Big Push region, the impact of idiosyncratic distortions is over three times larger than in models without such complementarity. This amplification enables our model to nearly fully account for the income gap between India and the US without coordination failures playing a role.

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Bibliographic Reference

Buera, F, Hopenhayn, H, Shin, Y and Trachter, N. 2021. 'Big Push in Distorted Economies'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=15910