The Diffusion of New Technology and the Evolution of Industry Structure: The North American Maritime Industries Since c.1789

新技术的扩散与产业结构的演变：约1789年以来的北美海运业

• 批准号: 9985962
• 负责人: Peter Thompson
• 金额: $ 20.49万
• 依托单位: University of Houston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-06-01 至 2002-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9985962&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Diffusion; New; Technology; Evolution; Industry

This research program is concerned with empirical investigations of the diffusion of new technology, the evolution of industry structure, and firm survival, all in the context of the North American merchant shipbuilding and merchant shipping industries from c.1789 to the twentieth century. The two main pur-poses of this project are: (1) to test between two competing theories of technological diffusion based on vintage-specific human capital and on learning, and (2) to study patterns of industry evolution and the determinants of firm survival with the particular focus of conducting discriminating tests between recent models of industry shakeouts.These tests will be conducted using new panel data on US shipyards and Canadian shippers, and on a large dataset of individual wage contracts struck between mariners and their employers on voyages leav-ing Canadian Atlantic ports. The data span periods of between 80 and 120 years. The Canadian data were recently made available to researchers, while the US data will be constructed from primary sources. These data are uniquely valuable for the study of technology because they identify the precise technology em-ployed by firms and the precise technology with which employees were working.Tests of theories of diffusion will focus on the discriminating predictions arising from models in which human capital is specific to technology of a given vintage, and those in which individual firms and workers learn about, and expend resources in order to switch to, new technologies. At the firm level, the vintage-specific human capital model predicts a negative correlation between the rate of technological diffusion and the variance of technologies in uses, while the learning model predicts a positive correla-tion. At the individual worker level, the vintage-specific human capital model predicts a steeper age-earnings profile for employees matched with recent vintages of technology, but that expected lifetime earnings for all workers are the same. The learning model, in contrast, predicts higher expected lifetime earnings for workers who master new technologies earlier.Recent theories of industry evolution have focused on the shakeout, a robust feature of the industry life cycle in which firm exit rates rise dramatically in a short period of time. Several recent studies have explained the shakeout in terms of differential success in adopting new technologies, while others have argued that variations in exit rates are simply a result of earlier variations in entry rates. Among studies arguing for the importance of technology, the role of firm scale has been treated differently. The research focuses on two main lines of inquiry: First, to what extent does the adoption of new technology matter for firm survival? Put another way, is firm age a sufficient statistic for firm growth and survival, or does technology choice matter? Second, is current scale an important indicator of the probability that a firm will eventually succeed in adopting new technology? These questions will be addressed using the panel of shipyards to measure the effects of firm size. firm age, and current technology on firm growth and sur-vival.

本研究项目涉及对新技术的传播、产业结构的演变和企业生存的实证调查，所有这些都以 1789 年至 20 世纪的北美商船建造和商船业为背景。该项目的两个主要目的是：（1）测试基于特定年份人力资本和学习的两种相互竞争的技术扩散理论，以及（2）研究行业演变模式和企业生存的决定因素，特别关注在最近的行业震荡模型之间进行区分测试。这些测试将使用美国造船厂和加拿大托运人的新面板数据以及大型数据集进行。 在离开加拿大大西洋港口的航行中，海员与其雇主之间签订的个人工资合同。数据跨度为 80 至 120 年。加拿大的数据最近已提供给研究人员，而美国的数据将根据主要来源构建。这些数据对于技术研究具有独特的价值，因为它们确定了企业使用的精确技术以及员工工作所使用的精确技术。扩散理论的检验将集中于模型所产生的判别性预测，在这些模型中，人力资本特定于特定时期的技术，以及个体企业和工人了解并花费资源以转向新技术的模型。在公司层面，特定年份的人力资本模型预测技术扩散率与技术使用差异之间存在负相关，而学习模型则预测正相关。在个体工人层面，特定年份的人力资本模型预测，与最近的技术年份相匹配的员工的年龄收入状况会更高，但所有工人的预期终生收入是相同的。相比之下，学习模型预测，较早掌握新技术的工人的预期终生收入会更高。 最近的行业演化理论主要关注“洗牌”，这是行业生命周期的一个重要特征，即企业退出率在短时间内急剧上升。最近的几项研究用新技术采用的成功率差异来解释这种震荡，而其他研究则认为退出率的变化仅仅是早期进入率变化的结果。在主张技术重要性的研究中，企业规模的作用得到了不同的对待。该研究主要关注两个主要问题：首先，新技术的采用对企业生存有多大影响？换句话说，企业年龄对于企业成长和生存来说是一个足够的统计数据，还是技术选择很重要？其次，目前的规模是否是企业最终成功采用新技术的可能性的重要指标？这些问题将通过使用造船厂小组来衡量公司规模的影响来解决。企业年龄以及当前技术对企业成长和生存的影响。