| The rapid innovation and diffusion of new technologies is important to ensure sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty. Furthermore, structural change due to technology adoption potentially leads to significant socio-economic consequences. The four essays of this dissertation explore the microdynamics of technology innovation and adoption. The role of learning and other dynamic issues of adoption with endogenous decision-making processes are also considered as empirical applications.; The first essay develops a comprehensive framework of induced innovation that integrates the various channels of linking among factor prices, commodity prices, factor endowments, and environmental quality in an open economy. Based on a microeconomic induced innovation model with research benefit maximizing R&D firms, the essay shows that the allocation of research resources and factor biases of new technologies depend upon (a) relative factor prices, (b) relative factor endowments, (c) the nature of the innovation possibility function, (d) costs of research activities, and (e) relative commodity prices.; The second essay develops a dynamic technology adoption model to characterize multiple adoption categories for each technology, as well as the potential interactions among related but unbundled technologies. Comparative static results show that people are more likely to adopt new technologies as time discount rates increase, learning costs decrease, and gains from adoption increase. Furthermore, the application of the model extends to investigate three potential interactions among different explanations (persistence, package, and lagged cross effects) for technology choices.; The last two essays are empirical papers that use panel data methods to analyze the adoption patterns of two widely used biotechnologies: genetically modified (GM) crops and recombinant bovine somatropin (rBST). In the third essay, estimations of four empirical models (multinomial logit, pooled probit, random effects probit, and bivariate probit) capture dynamic interactions within and across the adoption of three major GM crops. The fourth essay examines the duration and dynamic scale bias of rBST adoption when one of complementary technologies to rBST is also a choice variable for potential adopters. |
