Lobbies and Technology Diffusion
利用23个国家过去两个世纪20种技术的扩散数据，发现游说会阻碍技术扩散，尤其是当新技术有技术相近的前身时，制度因素对扩散的阻碍作用更大。
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 using a data set that covers the diffusion of twenty 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 technology exists. These effects are quantitatively important. Thus, we conclude that lobbies are an important barrier to technology adoption and to development. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.