Aug 11, 2020
Tying the
importance of economics to technological innovation is key to
advancing developing countries. Eric Verhoogen’s research asks why
firms in industrial countries aren’t adopting technologies already
developed by richer countries. He tells listeners about some
microeconomics concepts his research explores.
For example, he explains
Eric Verhoogen is a professor in
the Department of Economics and School of International and Public
Affairs at Columbia University. He researches the
importance of economics in adopting new technologies by
examining organizational barriers to these technologies. He
explains this research by telling listeners about a specific
example involving the introduction of a less wasteful technology
into soccer ball production in several Pakistani firms.
He describes his particular research experiment that resulted in
pinpointing the barrier to implementing this technology on workers
who would lose money in their per-piece system. He discusses why
this was the case and what was different about one firm that chose
to take on this technology and why that was significant.
His example relays other
barriers to taking on new technology such as owners unwilling to
undergo too much organizational reworking as well as the mysteries
behind the lack of much “knowledge spill over.” Such research opens
up keys to ways government could effectively intervene in terms of
tariff reduction and trade organizations.
He also discusses his other research projects such as incentivizing
surgical goods innovation through a contest and a project in
Tunisia on pay-for-performance export production and
subsidies.
To find out more, see his
Columbia website, columbia.edu/~ev2124/, and find him on Twitter as @EricVerhoogen.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK