TY  - JOUR
AU  - Comin,Diego
AU  - Hobijn,Bart
TI  - Lobbies and Technology Diffusion
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11022
PY  - 2005
Y2  - January 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11022
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11022.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Diego A. Comin
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Tel: 617/495-5011
E-Mail: dcomin@hbs.edu

Bart Hobijn
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Economic Research Department, Mailstop 1130
101 Market Street, 11th floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: 415 974 2314
Fax: 415 974 2168
E-Mail: bart.hobijn@sf.frb.org
AB  - 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 in a unique dataset compiled by us 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 a technology exists. These effects are quantitatively important. Thus, we conclude that lobbies are an important barrier to technology adoption and to development.
ER  -