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Hilbert, M. (2014). Scale- Free Power- Laws as Interaction between Progress and Diffusion. Complexity, 19(4), 56–65.
Abstract: While scale-free power-laws are frequently found in social and technological systems, their authenticity, origin, and gained insights are often questioned, and rightfully so. The article presents a newly found rank-frequency power-law that aligns the top-500 supercomputers according to their performance. Pursuing a cautious approach in a systematic way, we check for authenticity, evaluate several potential generative mechanisms, and ask the so what question. We evaluate and finally reject the applicability of well-known potential generative mechanisms such as preferential attachment, self-organized criticality, optimization, and random observation. Instead, the microdata suggest that an inverse relationship between exponential technological progress and exponential technology diffusion through social networks results in the identified fat-tail distribution. This newly identified generative mechanism suggests that the supply and demand of technology (technology push and demand pull) align in exponential synchronicity, providing predictive insights into the evolution of highly uncertain technology markets. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 19: 56-65, 2014
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Villena, M., & Greve, F. (2018). On resource depletion and productivity: The case of the Chilean copper industry. Resour. Policy, 59, 553–562.
Abstract: How resource depletion affects productivity is a crucial question for several industries. In fact, several natural resource-exporting countries have seen their productivity levels affected by resource depletion. Nevertheless, usually, it is not clear what the real productivity growth is, without discarding the effects of resource depletion in the production structure. The main aim of the paper is to empirically answer a relevant issue regarding the Chilean copper mining industry, which is, the slowdown of its productivity in the last decade, considering in the analysis the role of resource depletion. In particular, we consider resource depletion to be an exogenous and unpaid force that opposes technological change and hence increases costs through time, capturing in this way some stylized facts of, for example, the mining and fishing industries. The decomposition framework was applied to the Chilean copper mining industry, one of the most important in the world, using data from the period of 1985-2015. The econometric results were robust and pointed to the fact that the productivity fell sharply during the period; however, it did not fall as much as the traditional estimation methods pointed out. Our model showed that as much as 15% of this decline was due to the increase of the resource depletion variable (copper ore grade).
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