Marla Ripoll is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. She joined Pitt in 2000 after completing her PhD at the University of Rochester. Although initially interested in understanding the role of credit constraints in explaining recessions and expansions of the economy, her most recent research centers on growth and development economics. Her interests in this field include technology creation and diffusion, inequality, agricultural development, schooling and demographics. Her work has appeared in various journals including Journal of Monetary Economics, International Economic Review, and Review of Economics and Statistics. Her courses at Pitt include international trade, development economics and macroeconomics both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was awarded the 2004 Tina and David Bellet Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award, and the 2009 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Marla is currently a member of the editorial board of ESPE, the journal of Colombia’s Central Bank.

"Productivity, trade, and the R&D content of intermediate inputs"

Abstract: This paper explores a novel way to evaluate the extent to which R&D capital embodied in intermediate inputs affects productivity at the industry level. We propose the concept of R&D content of intermediates, which represents the R&D stock embodied in intermediate goods used in production. This concept parallels that of factor content of trade, and it requires the use of a global input-output matrix that specifies all industries and countries involved in the intermediate purchases. Using a sample of 32 countries and 13 manufacturing industries we compute the elasticity of industry-level TFP with respect to the R&D content of intermediates. We find that while for high-R&D intensive industries this elasticity is positive and significant, it is not statistically different from zero for low-R&D intensive industries. In addition, among high-R&D intensive industries most of the positive effects are due to purchases of intermediate inputs produced by the same industry in G5 countries.