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on Microeconomic European Issues |
| By: | Lissoni, Francesco; Montobbio, Fabio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the value and impact of academic patents in five different European countries with different institutional frameworks: Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Ownership patterns of academic patents are found to: (i) differ greatly across country, due to a combination of legal norms on IP and institutional features of the university system; (ii) be strongly associated to academic patents' value, as measured by patent citations. Company-owned academic patents tend to be as cited as non-academic ones, while university-owned tend to be less cited. Academic patents in the Netherlands are more cited than non-academic ones, irrespective to their ownership, while university-owned patents get fewer citations in both France and Italy. We propose an explanation of these results based on the different autonomy and experience in dealing with IP and technology transfer enjoyed by universities in the countries considered. We also find that company-owned academic patents in Sweden get many fewer citations than non-academic. Individually-owned academic patents are more cited than non-academic patents similarly owned by their inventors. |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201220&r=eur |
| By: | Jonas Egerer; Clemens Gerbaulet; Casimir Lorenz |
| Abstract: | The European climate targets until 2050 require an adaptation of the generation portfolio in terms of renewable and fossil based generation. Assumptions on the timeline of the targets and the availability and costs of generation technologies are used in energy system models to optimize the cost minimal system transformation. The results include investments in generation technologies and their national allocation. Yet, the models are limited to the national aggregation and lack the spatial resolution required to represent individual network investments and related costs. In this paper, we analyze the impact the results of an energy system model have on demand for network expansion in the European power grid in a line-sharp representation. A cost minimizing mixed-integer problem (MIP) model calculates where in the European electricity grid expansion needs to take place for different time steps (2020/30/40/50) in order to obtain minimal total costs for power plant dispatch and grid expansion. Scenarios based on the generation infrastructure options from the PRIMES EU-wide energy model scenarios invoke different expansion needs and are compared. The model allows investments in the AC network and an overlay DC grid. Resulting investment costs are compared to the numbers of the European Energy Roadmap 2050. |
| Keywords: | Electricity, European Transmission Network, Investment Model |
| JEL: | C61 H54 L94 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1299&r=eur |
| By: | Antonelli,Cristiano; Gehringer, Agnieszka (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the demand pull effects on sector-level total factor productivity growth. Such effects stem from the knowledge interactions carried by the market Transactions of intermediate inputs between competent customers and innovative suppliers. Both knowledge interactions and transactions are substantial ingredients in making the competent demand operate the positive impact on productivity growth of the entire economic system. The demand pull hypothesis is, thus, rejuvenated through the focus on the inter-sectoral linkages between competent users and innovative producers. In the empirical analysis based on a dynamic panel technique, we implement intermediate flows from input-output tables, qualified by productivity increases downstream, in order to investigate their joint influence on the upstream growth of productivity. The evidence Union of the derived demand-driven influence regarding the European (EU) over the period 1995-2007 is strong and positive, but varies between three EU innovation systems, EU core, East and South. |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201301&r=eur |
| By: | Katz, Katarina (Karlstad university); Österberg, Torun (University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | We analyse full-time monthly wages of employees with parents born in Sweden and of childhood immigrants who arrived before the end of compulsory school-age. We use a detailed disaggregation of background countries, which shows considerable hetero-geneity, in overeducation, in returns to education and in birth-country coefficients, unexplained by wage models. Both the non-European childhood immigrants and of those from Southern Europe suffer a wage disadvantage relative to natives, men to a larger extent than women. Returns to education are generally lower for non-European childhood immigrants than for natives. Comparison with workers, who immigrated as adults, shows that the childhood immigrants of most nationalities run lower risk of being overeducated and have a smaller wage disadvantage. The child/adult immigrant difference is larger, the larger the disadvantage of the adult immigrants from a country of origin. But for male childhood immigrants from some of the labour transmitter countries, the risk of overeducation is larger than it is for adult immigrants and the difference in adjusted wages between childhood immigrants and adult immigrants also tends to be smaller than for other countries of origin. |
| Keywords: | Wages; immigrants; childhood immigrants; returns to education; overeducation |
| JEL: | I24 J15 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2013–04–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2013_008&r=eur |
| By: | Richard Ochmann; Patricia Gallego Granados |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwddc:dd67&r=eur |
| By: | Jan Abrell; Friedrich Kunz |
| Abstract: | In northern Europe wind energy has become a dominating renewable energy source due to natural conditions and national support schemes. However, the uncertainty about wind generation affects existing network infrastructure and power production planning of generators and cannot not be fully diminished by wind forecasts. In this paper we develop a stochastic electricity market model to analyze the impact of uncertain wind generation on the different electricity markets as well as network congestion management. Stochastic programming techniques are used to incorporate uncertain wind generation. The technical characteristics of transporting electrical energy as well as power plants are explicitly taken into account. The consecutive clearing of the electricity markets is incorporated by a rolling planning procedure reflecting the market regime of European markets. The model is applied to the German electricity system covering an exemplary week. Three different cases of considering uncertain wind generation are analyzed. The results reveal that the flexibility of the generation dispatch is increased either by using more flexible generation technologies or by flexibilizing the generation pattern of rather inflexible technologies. |
| Keywords: | Electricity, Unit Commitment, Stochasticity, Renewable Energy |
| JEL: | C61 D41 L94 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1301&r=eur |
| By: | Ghisetti,Claudia; Marzucchi,Alberto; Montresor,Sandro |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects that knowledge sources external to the firm have on its environmental innovations (EIs). Using the CIS 2006-2008, we refer to both the probability to introduce an EI and the number of EI-typologies adopted by firms. We estimate the impact of the “depth” and “breadth” of knowledge sourcing. In addition, we test for the moderating role of the firm's absorptive capacity. In general, knowledge sourcing has a positive impact on both types of EI-performance. However, a broad sourcing strategy reveals a threshold, over which the propensity to introduce an EI diminishes. Cognitive constraints in processing knowledge inputs that are too diverse could explain this result. Absorptive capacity generally helps firms in turning broadly sourced external knowledge into EI. Conversely, internal innovation capabilities and knowledge socialization mechanisms seem to diminish the EI impact of knowledge sourced through intense external interactions. The possibility of mismatches between internal and external knowledge and problems in distributing the decision-makers’ attention between the two could explain this result. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Innovation, Open Innovation, Absorptive Capacity |
| JEL: | Q55 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2013–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201301&r=eur |
| By: | Cinzia Di Novi (Dipartimento di Economia, Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia, Italy); Rowena Jacobs (Centre for Health Economics, University of York, UK); Matteo Migheli (Dipartimento di Economia "S. Cognetti De Martiis", Università di Torino, Italy) |
| Abstract: | We analyse the impact of the provision of care on the health and quality of life (QoL) of mature female informal caregivers using a representative sample drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We match each informal caregiver with a non-carer using Propensity Score matching and test whether matched individuals differ on self-assessed health and a functional indicator of QoL and whether this relationship differs across European regions. We find a North-South gradient both for self-assessed health and QoL and our results show that the provision of caregiving to close relatives in Europe impacts on the caregivers’ quality of life and health in a way that depends on their geographical location, the degree of formal care and specific cultural and social factors of the area. We find that informal caregiving is a complex phenomenon which may bring both psychological rewards and distress to providers of care and this complexity, along with the geographical gradient highlight the importance of ensuring that policies match the needs of individual carers in their own geographical areas and cultural contexts. |
| Keywords: | informal caregiving; quality of life; self-assessed health; Europe |
| JEL: | I10 I12 D10 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chy:respap:84cherp&r=eur |
| By: | Kräussl, Roman; Krause, Stefan |
| Abstract: | After nearly two decades of US leadership during the 1980s and 1990s, are Europe's venture capital (VC) markets in the 2000s finally catching up regarding the provision of financing and successful exits, or is the performance gap as wide as ever? Are we amid an overall VC performance slump with no encouraging news? We attempt to answer these questions by tracking over 40,000 VC-backed firms stemming from six industries in 13 European countries and the US between 1985 and 2009; determining the type of exit - if any - each particular firm's investors choose for the venture. -- |
| Keywords: | Venture Capital,Private Equity,Entrepreneurial Activity,Performance Gap |
| JEL: | G24 G3 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cfswop:201216&r=eur |
| By: | Eibich, Peter (DIW Berlin); Ziebarth, Nicolas R. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits rich SOEP microdata to analyze state-level variation in health care utilization in Germany. Unlike most studies in the field of the Small Area Variation (SAV) literature, our approach allows us to net out a large array of individual-level and state-level factors that may contribute to the geographic variation in health care utilization. The raw data suggest that state-level hospitalization rates vary from 65 percent to 165 percent of the national mean. Ambulatory doctor visits range from 90 percent to 120 percent of the national mean. Interestingly, in the former GDR states doctor visit rates are significantly below the national mean, while hospitalization rates lie above the national mean. The significant state-level differences vanish once we control for individual-level socio-economic characteristics, the respondents' health status, their health behavior as well as supply-side state-level factors. |
| Keywords: | SOEP, small area variation, health care utilization |
| JEL: | I12 I14 I18 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7409&r=eur |
| By: | Simon Forge (SCF Associates Ltd); Colin Blackman (Camford Associates); Itzhak Goldberg (CASE (Center for Social and Economic Research)); Federico Biagi (European Commission – JRC - IPTS) |
| Abstract: | The objective of the study is to document the existence of innovation gaps between the EU and its main competitors in specific ICT sub-sectors – namely web services, industrial robotics and display technologies –and to explore the role of government policies in Europe’s future needs for innovation in information and communication technologies (ICT) through a comparison with the USA and Asian countries. Our analysis shows that rather than there being a simple innovation gap with the EU lagging behind the USA, a more nuanced picture emerges in which firms in different countries have strengths in different sub-sectors and in different parts of the value chain. A key lesson from the analysis of the three subsectors is the critical importance of higher education, particularly elite university research, and of local networks as generated by clusters. Governments can also encourage innovation through appropriate intellectual property and competition laws and, more generally, through the development of a business environment conducive to innovation. Finally, Governments can have a very important role through the funding of early-stage innovation |
| Keywords: | ICT, Innovation policy, Industrial policy |
| JEL: | L5 L6 L8 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc81448&r=eur |
| By: | Facundo Alvaredo; Anthony B. Atkinson; Thomas Piketty; Emmanuel Saez |
| Abstract: | The top 1 percent income share has more than doubled in the United States over the last thirty years, drawing much public attention in recent years. While other English speaking countries have also experienced sharp increases in the top 1 percent income share, many high-income countries such as Japan, France, or Germany have seen much less increase in top income shares. Hence, the explanation cannot rely solely on forces common to advanced countries, such as the impact of new technologies and globalization on the supply and demand for skills. Moreover, the explanations have to accommodate the falls in top income shares earlier in the twentieth century experienced in virtually all high-income countries. We highlight four main factors. The first is the impact of tax policy, which has varied over time and differs across countries. Top tax rates have moved in the opposite direction from top income shares. The effects of top rate cuts can operate in conjunction with other mechanisms. The second factor is indeed a richer view of the labor market, where we contrast the standard supply-side model with one where pay is determined by bargaining and the reactions to top rate cuts may lead simply to a redistribution of surplus. Indeed, top rate cuts may lead managerial energies to be diverted to increasing their remuneration at the expense of enterprise growth and employment. The third factor is capital income. Overall, private wealth (relative to income) has followed a U-shaped path over time, particularly in Europe, where inherited wealth is, in Europe if not in the United States, making a return. The fourth, little investigated, element is the correlation between earned income and capital income, which has substantially increased in recent decades in the United States. |
| JEL: | H2 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19075&r=eur |
| By: | Estrella Gomez (European Commission – JRC - IPTS); Bertin Martens (European Commission – JRC - IPTS); Geomina Turlea (European Commission – JRC - IPTS) |
| Abstract: | There are no official statistics on international online trade in goods so far. This paper uses a consumer survey to construct a unique matrix of online B2C domestic and cross-border trade in goods between the 27 EU Member States. We compare online and offline trade patterns for similar goods. We find that the standard gravity model performs well in explaining online cross-border trade flows. The model confirms the strong reduction in geographical distance-related trade costs, compared to offline trade. However, the trade costs associated with crossing language barriers increase when moving from offline to online trade. Institutional variables such as online payments facilities and cost-efficiency of parcel delivery systems might play a significant role in cross-border trade and our analysis confirms this. In a linguistically segmented market like the EU, online home market bias remains high compared to bias in offline cross-border trade. We conclude that it is hard to predict at this stage whether regulators could boost online cross-border trade through improvements in legal and financial systems, and parcel delivery infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | online trade, e-commerce, gravity, barriers to trade, home bias |
| JEL: | F15 O52 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:decwpa:2013-02&r=eur |
| By: | Colombelli Alessandra; Krafft.Jackie; Quatraro Francesco (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the effects of the properties of firms’ knowledge base on the survival likelihood of firms. Drawing upon the analysis of the patterns of co-occurrence of technological classes in patent applications, we derive the coherence, variety and cognitive distance indexes, accounting respectively for technological complementarity, differentiation and (dis)similarity in the firms’ patent portfolios. The results of our analysis are in line with the previous literature, showing that innovation enhances the survival likelihood of firms. In addition, we show that the search strategies at work in the development of firms’ knowledge base matter in reducing the likelihood of a failure event. Knowledge coherence and variety appear to be positively related to firms’ survival, while cognitive distance exerts a negative effect. We conclude that firms able to exploit the accumulated technological competences have more chances to be successful in competing durably in the market arena, and derive some policy implications concerning the role of public intervention in the orientation of search efforts in local contexts. |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201209&r=eur |
| By: | Anja Köbrich León |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp553&r=eur |
| By: | Elisa Borghi; Rosario Crinò |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of service offshoring on the wages of Italian workers. To this purpose, we build up a novel data set combining information from two different sources: (1) matched employer-employee data based on administrative records from the Italian National Social Security Institute; and (2) industry-level indicators of service offshoring based on Import Matrices released by the Italian Statistical Office. We estimate worker-level wage regressions controlling for a number of employee, firm and industry characteristics. In line with previous studies, we find that service offshoring does not cause significant reductions in workers’ wages. We also find, however, that service offshoring contributes to widening the wage gap between more and less skilled employees. Finally, we document heterogeneity in the effects of service offshoring depending on the type of activities relocated abroad. Specifically, our results show that offshoring of business services exerts moderately negative effects on workers’ wages, whereas offshoring of other services has virtually no impact on individual earnings. |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liu:liucec:264&r=eur |
| By: | Antonelli,Cristiano; Gehringer,Agnieszka (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper elaborates the microeconomic foundations of the demand pull hypothesis stressing the role of vertical knowledge externalities stemming from the complementarity between know ledge interactions and user-producer transactions. The increase in the demand can pull the rate of technological change in the system when it concerns the derived demand of innovative sectors. In this framework, technological change is an emergent property of any dynamic system, where external knowledge made available by each agent plays a key role in the introduction of innovations by each other agent. Demand pulls the introduction of innovations when and where it comes from innovative customers. Using input output tables that grasp user-producer interactions, the paper provides an empirical test of these hypotheses for 15 European countries in the years 1995-2007. The evidence confirms that the in crease of total factor productivity of the upstream supplying sectors is positively influenced by the sector-level derived demand, according to the rates of introduction of innovations and to the intensity of their user-producer interactions. The policy implications of the analysis enable to elaborate and implement the notion of a ‘competent’ public demand. |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201214&r=eur |
| By: | Wladimir Raymond; Jacques Mairesse; Pierre Mohnen; Franz Palm |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces dynamics in the R&D to innovation and innovation to productivity relationships, which have mostly been estimated on cross-sectional data. It considers four nonlinear dynamic simultaneous equations models that include individual effects and idiosyncratic errors correlated across equations and that differ in the way innovation enters the conditional mean of labor productivity: through an observed binary indicator, an observed intensity variable or through the continuous latent variables that correspond to the observed occurrence or intensity. It estimates these models by full information maximum likelihood using two unbalanced panels of Dutch and French manufacturing firms from three waves of the Community Innovation Survey. The results provide evidence of robust unidirectional causality from innovation to productivity and of stronger persistence in productivity than in innovation. |
| JEL: | C33 C34 C35 L60 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19074&r=eur |
| By: | Fernández-Zubieta,Ana; Geuna, Aldo; Lawson, Cornelia (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the impact of mobility on researchers’ productivity. We address the relationship by developing a theoretical framework based on the job-matching approach for academics and the idea that productivity is driven by capital availability and peer effects. The empirical analysis is based on the entire careers of a sample of 171 UK academic researchers, spanning from 1957 to 2005. We analyse the impact of job changes on post mobility output in 3 and 6 year periods. Contrary to common wisdom, we do not find evidence that mobility per se increases academic performance. Mobility to better department s has a positive but weakly significant impact while downward mobility results in decreasing researchers’ productivity. Once we control for mobility associated with career progress, the results indicate significant strong positive impact for mobility to higher quality department. We estimated a set of alternative specifications of mobility finding evidence of an increase of productivity for mobility from industry to academia but only after an initial negative effect. In most cases mobility is associated with short-term decrease of productivity due to hypothesised adjustment costs. |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201306&r=eur |
| By: | Tobias Pfaff; Johannes Hirata |
| Abstract: | Recent studies focused on testing the Easterlin hypothesis (happiness and national income correlate in the cross-section but not over time) on a global level. We make a case for testing the Easterlin hypothesis at the country level where individual panel data allow exploiting important methodological advantages. Novelties of our test of the Easterlin hypothesis are a) long-term panel data and estimation with individual fixed effects, b) regional GDP per capita with a higher variation than national figures, c) accounting for potentially biased clustered standard errors when the number of clusters is small. Using long-term panel data for Germany and the United Kingdom, we do not find robust evidence for a relationship between GDP per capita and life satisfaction in either country (controlling for a variety of variables). Together with the evidence from previous research, we now count three countries for which Easterlin’s happiness-income hypothesis cannot be rejected: the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. |
| Keywords: | Subjective well-being, economic growth, income, Easterlin hypothesis |
| JEL: | C23 D0 I31 O40 O52 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp554&r=eur |