TY  - JOUR
AU  - Manuelli,Rodolfo
AU  - Seshadri,Ananth
TI  - Frictionless Technology Diffusion: The Case of Tractors
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9604
PY  - 2003
Y2  - April 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9604
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9604.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Rodolfo Manuelli
Department of Economics
Washington University in St. Louis
Campus Box 1208;
St. Louis, MO  63130-4899
Tel: 608/263-3877
Fax: 608/262-2033;608/263-3876
E-Mail: manuelli@artsci.wustl.edu

Ananth Seshadri
Department of Economics
University of Wisconsin
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI  53705
E-Mail: aseshadr@ssc.wisc.edu
AB  - Empirical evidence suggests that there is a long lag between the time a new technology is introduced and the time at which it is widely adopted. The conventional wisdom is that these observations are inconsistent with the predictions of the frictionless neoclassical model. In this paper we show this to be incorrect. Once the appropriate driving forces are taken into account, the neoclassical model can account for  slow' adoption. We illustrate this by developing an industry model to study the equilibrium rate of diffusion of tractors in the U.S. between 1910 and 1960.
ER  -