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The purpose of this paper is to explore how the depth and breadth of firms' technological knowledge affect their performance.

An empirical investigation of a sample of US manufacturing firms was conducted. The main independent variables were measured using firms' patent data. Three hypotheses based on theory were developed and tested using multivariate regressions. To increase reliability, alternative industry and firm explanators of performance are controlled.

The depth and breadth of technological knowledge, rather than total stock, are significantly better at predicting three measures of firm performance that was used in the study – return on invested capital, sales growth, and Tobin's q. The two knowledge dimensions exhibited either independent non‐linear effects or mutually reinforcing effects on each of the three performance measures.

The study is limited to a fine‐grained analysis of effects of technological knowledge. It does not take into account the facilitating role of marketing and administrative knowledge.

Corporate managers need to measure the depth and breadth of their technological knowledge stocks and include them in their planning models. Extreme combinations of depth and breadth need to be corrected and brought into balance.

The paper represents one of the few studies to disaggregate a firm's total stock of technological knowledge into its depth and breadth components.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how enhanced and new technological knowledge of firms affects their performance under varying rates of technological change.

A large‐sample empirical study of US manufacturing firms is used. The main independent variables are measured using firms' patent data. Three hypotheses were developed based on theory and were tested using multivariate regressions. To increase reliability, alternative industry and firm explanators of performance were controlled for.

It was found that performance effects of enhanced technological knowledge increase with increasing rate of technological change. Effects of each knowledge dimension are found to be non‐linear. New technological knowledge has no independent effect on performance but acts jointly with enhanced knowledge in improving performance under moderate to rapid rates of technological change.

The study is narrow in scope being a fine‐grained analysis of a firm's technological competence. It does not take into account the role of marketing and administrative competence.

This is one of the few studies to disaggregate a firm's total stock of technological knowledge into its enhanced and new components.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implications of sharply rising food prices for monetary policy in India and similar emerging economies at present.

This paper uses analytical arguments from relevant macroeconomic literature and evidence from late 1960s US data to examine whether the 1970s stagflation was due to the OPEC price hike. It develops a two person (rich and poor), two commodity (food and non‐food) model to examine the impact of rising food prices on GDP, on measures of inflation, and on welfare, in the model.

Previously neglected evidence indicates that stagflation (simultaneously rising unemployment and inflation) preceded the OPEC price hike. The model results indicate that when food prices rise, the GDP deflator falls relative to the consumer price index (CPI).

The impact of supply shocks should be investigated by carefully examining links between abnormal rainfall and weather and output and prices on commodity by commodity basis. Further, technical issues pertaining to construction of a composite CPI representative of the population need to be explored.

Monetary policy in India (and similar emerging economies) should focus upon a population weighted CPI or some variant thereof.

High GDP growth should not lead to complacency, since when food prices are rising, the overall welfare impact may be negative.

The model presented in this paper explains the sustained divergence in India, in recent years, between the CPI versus the GDP deflator measures of inflation. It also highlights a possible similar divergence between GDP and overall welfare.