On the International Dissemination of Technology News

Abstract

This paper investigates the propagation of technology news shocks within and across industrialized economies. We construct quarterly utilization-adjusted total factor productivity (TFP) for thirteen OECD countries. Based on country-specific structural vector autoregressions (VARs), we document that (i) the identified technology news shocks induce a quite homogeneous response pattern of key macroeconomic variables \textit{in each country}; and (ii) the identified technology news shock processes display a significant degree of correlation \textit{across several countries}. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that the US are only one of many different sources of technological innovations diffusing across advanced economies. Technology news propagate through the endogenous reaction of monetary policy and via trade-related variables. That is, our results imply that financial markets and trade are key channels for the dissemination of technology.