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on Innovation |
| By: | Tooraj Jamasb; Michael Pollitt |
| Abstract: | Electricity reform has coincided with a significant decline in energy R&D activities. Technical progress is crucial for tackling many energy and environmental issues as well as for long-term efficiency improvement. This paper reviews the industrial organisation literature on innovation to explore the causes of this decline, and shows that it was predicted by the pre-reform literature. More recent evidence endorses this conclusion. At the same time, R&D productivity and innovative output appear to have improved in both electric utilities and equipment suppliers, in line with general improvements in the operating efficiency of the sector. Despite this, a lasting decline in basic R&D and innovation input into basic research may negatively affect development of radical technological innovation in the long run. There is a need for reorientation of energy technology policies and spending toward more basic research, engaging more firms in R&D, encouraging collaborative research, and exploring public private partnerships. |
| Keywords: | innovation, R&D expenditure, electricity reform, regulation, ownership |
| JEL: | L94 O38 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0533&r=ino |
| By: | Gråsjö, Urban (Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden and University of Trollhättan/Uddevalla.) |
| Abstract: | The main purpose in this paper is to study to what extent accessibility to R&D can explain patent production. Therefore a knowledge production function is estimated both on aggregated level and for different industrial sectors. The output of the knowledge production is the number patent applications in Swedish municipalities from 1994 to 1999. In order to account for the importance of proximity, the explanatory variables are expressed as accessibilities to university and company R&D. The total accessibility is then decomposed into local, intra-regional and inter-regional accessibility to R&D. As often is the case with R&D outputs, the regional distribution of patents is highly skewed with influential outliers. The estimations are therefore conducted with quantile regressions. The main results on aggregated level indicate that high accessibility (local) to company R&D has the greatest positive effects on patent production. The effects are statistically significant for municipalities with a patent production corresponding to the median and to quantiles above the median. Local accessibility to university R&D is only of importance for certain industrial sectors and not on aggregated level. There is also evidence that intra-regional accessibility to company R&D affects patent production positively. A conclusion is that concentrated R&D investments in companies situated in municipalities with a high patenting activity would not only gain the municipalities themselves, but also the patent production in other municipalities in the functional region. |
| Keywords: | innovations; patents; R&D; knowledge production functions |
| JEL: | C30 O31 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2005–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0037&r=ino |
| By: | Lee Branstetter; Yoshiaki Ogura |
| Abstract: | What is driving the remarkable increase over the last decade in the propensity of patents to cite academic science? Does this trend indicate that stronger knowledge spillovers from academia have helped power the surge in innovative activity in the U.S. in the 1990s? This paper seeks to shed light on these questions by using a common empirical framework to assess the relative importance of various alternative hypotheses in explaining the growth in patent citations to science. Our analysis supports the notion that the nature of U.S. inventive activity has changed over the sample period, with an increased emphasis on the use of the knowledge generated by university-based scientists in later years. However, the concentration of patent-to-paper citation activity within what we call the "bio nexus" suggests that much of the contribution of knowledge spillovers from academia may be largely confined to bioscience-related inventions. |
| JEL: | O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11561&r=ino |
| By: | Johansson, Börje (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Lööf, Hans (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | FDI inflows have expanded rapidly during the past decade. This paper analyses if such inflows do introduce new characteristics of the innovation systems at national and regional levels. The paper studies two phenomena. First, what novelties are brought into the host region (country) when FDI inflows occur? Second, what are the consequences for the innovation intensity, technology transfer and economic performance of firms in a regional (national) economy that experiences FDI inflows? These issues are assessed by examining the characteristics of foreign multinationals and comparing them with the characteristics of multinational, uninational and non-affiliate firms, respectively. The analyses control for location, examine regional impacts, and are based on CIS data (Community Innovation Survey III). The paper contributes to earlier studies in two important ways. First, it compares FDI firms with three other distinct types of corporate structure. Second, it combines results from both parametric and non-parametric estimations. The results indicate that FDI inflows in an unambiguous way renew the local economy when acquiring or replacing domestic multi-unit firms (uninationals). Compared to other types of corporate structure, FDI firms do not seem to improve innovation characteristics of the local economy. |
| Keywords: | FDI; technology transfer; innovation; regional economy |
| JEL: | C21 D21 F23 L23 R11 |
| Date: | 2005–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0036&r=ino |
| By: | Sandro Mendonça |
| Abstract: | This empirical paper analyses the importance of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the technological diversification trend among the world’s largest manufacturing firms during the 1980s and 1990s. The objective of the research is twofold: firstly, to emphasise the emerging differences among technologies when companies from different industries patent outside their traditional technological capabilities; secondly, to investigate whether the tendency among large companies from all industries to patent in ICT is distinctive when compared with the tendency to patent in other technologies. We find that technological diversification in large companies has clearly occurred in ICTs. Non-ICT specialist industries increasingly develop, rather than just utilise, the cluster of ICT-related technologies. We conclude that the development of corporate capabilities in the key technologies of the emerging ICT paradigm is more widespread than previously emphasised in the literature. One implication of this observation is that technological diversification and the information revolution may be related phenomena. |
| Keywords: | Technological diversification, Large firms, ICT, Patents. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2005/19&r=ino |
| By: | Diego Puga; Daniel Trefler |
| Abstract: | Increasingly, a small number of low-wage countries such as China and India are involved in innovation -- not `big ideas' innovation, but the constant incremental innovations needed to stay ahead in business. We provide some evidence of this new phenomenon and develop a model in which there is a transition from old-style product-cycle trade to trade involving incremental innovation in low-wage countries. We explain why levels of involvement in innovation vary across low-wage countries and even across firms within each low-wage country. We then draw out implications for the location of production, trade, capital flows, earnings and living standards. |
| JEL: | F1 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11571&r=ino |
| By: | Rasmus Lentz; Dale T. Mortensen |
| Abstract: | Productivity dispersion across firms is large and persistent, and worker reallocation among firms is an important source of productivity growth. The purpose of the paper is to estimate the structure of an equilibrium model of growth through innovation that explains these facts. The model is a modified version of the Schumpeterian theory of firm evolution and growth developed by Klette and Kortum (2004). The data set is a panel of Danish firms than includes information on value added, employment, and wages. The model's fit is good and the structural parameter estimates have interesting implications for the aggregate growth rate and the contribution of worker reallocation to it. |
| JEL: | E22 E24 J23 J24 L11 L25 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11546&r=ino |
| By: | Nadja Trhal |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of the degree of competition in a Cournot market on one firm's unilateral incentives to invest in R&D. Applying comparative static analyses we get different predictions depending on the magnitude of the innovation efficiency parameter alpha. Even inner solutions arose. For alpha->1 the comparative statics predicate that incentives to invest in R&D are strongest in a monopoly whereas for smaller alpha the optimal market structure for unilateral innovation varies depending on the cost level. |
| Keywords: | innovation incentives; market structure; Cournot competition |
| JEL: | D4 L1 O31 |
| Date: | 2005–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kls:series:0020&r=ino |
| By: | Rasmus Lentz (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Dale T. Mortensen (Northwestern University) |
| Abstract: | Productivity dispersion across firms is large and persistent, and worker reallocation among firms is an important source of productivity growth. The purpose of the paper is to estimate the structure of an equilibrium model of growth through innovation that explains these facts. The model is a modified version of the Schumpeterian theory of firm evolution and growth developed by Klette and Kortum (2004). The data set is a panel of Danish firms than includes information on value added, employment, and wages. The model's fit is good and the structural parameter estimates have interesting implications for the aggregate growth rate and the contribution of worker reallocation to it. |
| Keywords: | labor productivity growth; worker reallocation; firm dynamics; firm panel data estimation |
| JEL: | E22 E24 J23 J24 L11 L25 O3 |
| Date: | 2005–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieca:2005_13&r=ino |
| By: | Paola Criscuolo; Rajneesh Narula |
| Abstract: | Over the last decade or so, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have shifted from centralised hub structures to multi-hub structures. While these new structures provide greater potential for cross-fertilization of technologies and access to location-specific competences, promoting effective knowledge transfer within an MNE – especially in their R&D activities - presents significant managerial challenges. Using evidence collected on the R&D activities of MNEs in the pharmaceutical sector, this paper analyses the challenges associated with complexities of promoting and integrating knowledge flows in the face of inter-unit geographical, organizational and technological distance. MNEs are faced with organizational inertia that hinders efficient lateral communication and inter-unit knowledge transfer, and the evidence suggests that while socialization mechanisms help overcoming some of these bottlenecks, there remain a number of obstacles in optimising knowledge flows in physically and technologically dispersed R&D facilities. |
| Keywords: | Multinational enterprises; R&D; Geographical distance |
| JEL: | F23 D85 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:05-13&r=ino |
| By: | T. Broekel; T. Brenner |
| Abstract: | A growing body of work emphasizes the role that the spatial component plays in the in the innovation process. These perspectives brought the region's infrastructure and its endowment with crucial factors into the focus of research. Given that these factors do significantly influence the innovativeness of local firms, it is important to identify precisely which regional characteristics matter. The aim of this paper is to identify a number of key influences out of a multitude of structural factors that are thought to influence the firm's innovation activity. We examine more than eighty variables that approximate the financial, geographical and social-economic factor endowment of a region. The variables are tested with a linear and log - linear model. The two staged procedure examines the variable's bivariate correlation with patent data of five industries. Based on these outcomes multivariate regression models are applied in the second stage. The results for the different models are compared and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. We find a strong impact of economic agglomeration, extramural science institutions and human capital. In the case of human capital, especially the graduates at the technical colleges are collocated with high regional innovativeness. Furthermore, significant differences are observed for the five industries and for using the two models. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2005-09&r=ino |
| By: | Acs, Zoltan (Max Plank Institute and Merrick School of Business, Baltimore); Braunerhjelm, Pontus (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how Sweden and the United States have been impacted by philanthropic activities, commercialization of university-based knowledge and international entrepreneurship. The analysis comprises a detailed case study of Swedish and U.S. universities, as well as a statistical analysis of the impact of philanthropy on economic growth. The results show that the United States has prompted a university system based on competition and variety, with an emphasis on philanthropy, promoting knowledge creation. International entrepreneurship has been an important mechanism by which this knowledge is globalized leading to increased economic growth. Conversely, Swedish universities were characterized by less commercialized R&D and weak links to the commercial sector, rooted traditionally in dependence on tax-financed and homogenous university structure. The Swedish model has begun to change with important implications for development in smaller domestic markets. The analysis has important implications for knowledge creation as a source of economic growth through international entrepreneurship taking advantage of globalization, especially for smaller countries. |
| Keywords: | Philanthropy; entrepreneurship; growth |
| JEL: | M13 M14 O30 |
| Date: | 2005–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0034&r=ino |
| By: | Christian Ghiglino (Queen Mary, University of London) |
| Abstract: | We propose a model of economic growth in which technological progress is modelled as an expanding random network of ideas. New ideas are created by combining successful old ideas. Old ideas are chosen according to their visibility as ideas, success as generators of innovations and age but the process is stochastic. The productivity of an innovation on the other hand depends on the number, importance and success of the neighbors to the parent idea. Within this framework, we isolate the conditions on the law governing the growth of the network compatible with balanced growth. The paper can be viewed as an attempt to provide microfoundations to the set of production functions compatible with the stylized facts of economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, Technological progress, Innovations, Random growing network, Ideas, Scale-free distributions |
| JEL: | D30 D50 D90 O41 |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp546&r=ino |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Mathias Dewatripont; Jeremy C. Stein |
| Abstract: | We develop a model that clarifies the respective advantages and disadvantages of academic and private-sector research. Our model assumes full protection of intellectual property rights at all stages of the development process, and hence does not rely on lack of appropriability or spillovers to generate a rationale for academic research. Instead, we focus on control-rights considerations, and argue that the fundamental tradeoff between academia and the private sector is one of creative control versus focus. By serving as a precommitment mechanism that allows scientists to freely pursue their own interests, academia can be indispensable for early-stage research. At the same time, the private sector’s ability to direct scientists towards higher-payoff activities makes it more attractive for later-stage research. |
| JEL: | L33 O31 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11542&r=ino |
| By: | Lex Borghans (ROA, Maastricht University and IZA Bonn); Bas ter Weel (MERIT, Maastricht University and IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | The model developed in this paper explains differences in the division of labour across firms as a result of computer technology adoption. We find that changes in the division of labour can result both from reduced production time and from improved communication possibilities. The first shifts the division of labour towards a more generic structure, while the latter enhances specialisation. Although there exists heterogeneity, our estimates for a representative sample of Dutch establishments in the period 1990-1996 suggest that productivity gains have been the main determinant for shifts in the division of labour within most firms. These productivity gains have induced skill upgrading, while in firms gaining mainly from improved communication possibilities specialisation increased and skill requirements have fallen. |
| Keywords: | division of labour, wage level and structure, technological change, computerisation of the labour market |
| JEL: | J31 O15 O33 |
| Date: | 2005–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1709&r=ino |
| By: | Gavin C. Reid; Julia A. Smith |
| Abstract: | This paper is an empirical investigation into the ways in which venture capitalists value (and invest in) high technology firms, focusing on financial reporting, risk disclosure and intangible assets. It is based on questionnaire returns from UK investors in diverse sectors, ranging from biotechnology, through software/ computer services, to communications and medical services. This evidence is used to examine: (a) the usefulness of financial accounts; (b) the implications of technopole investment; (c) the extent of investor control over the investee’s AIS; and (d) the role of investor opinion (e.g. on disclosure, due diligence and risk reporting) in determining the level of equity provision. |
| Keywords: | venture capital, high technology, accounting information, intangible assets |
| JEL: | D81 D82 G24 G32 M13 M41 O31 |
| Date: | 2005–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:crieff:0510&r=ino |
| By: | R. Quentin Grafton (Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University); Tom Kompas (Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University); P. Dorian Owen (Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National UniversityTitle:) |
| Abstract: | The paper explains the large differences in cross-country productivity performance by modeling and testing the effects of social barriers to communication on productivity and capital accumulation. In an optimal growth model, social barriers to communication that impede the formation of knowledge connections are shown to reduce both transitory and steady-state levels of total factor productivity (TFP), per capita consumption, and reproducible capital. A ‘bridging’ parameter in the growth model that lowers the disutility of forming knowledge connections generates testable and dynamic implications about the effects of social barriers on capital, consumption, and productivity. Extensive empirical testing of the theoretical propositions yields a robust and theoretically consistent result — linguistic barriers to communication reduce productivity and capital accumulation. The findings provide a theoretical justification and a robust explanation for cross-country differences in TFP, and fresh insights into how productivity ‘catch up’ may be initiated. |
| Keywords: | knowledge connections, productivity, economic growth |
| JEL: | O41 C61 C21 |
| Date: | 2004–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:macroe:577&r=ino |
| By: | Ana Teresa Tavares (CEMPRE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Aurora A. C. Teixeira (CEMPRE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the scarce empirical literature on the impact of foreign ownership on human capital intensity. New evidence is provided, based on a comprehensive, large-scale survey of technology-based firms located in Portugal. Using two alternatives measures of human capital (one based on skills, another on education), the key findings are that: (1) foreign ownership directly (and significantly) impacts on firms general human capital (education); (2) foreign ownership indirectly (and significantly) impacts on firms specific human capital (skills); (3) the total impact of foreign ownership on firms’ human capital intensity is higher for education- (general) than for skills- (specific) related human capital intensity. Other findings are that younger and smaller firms tend to be more human capital intensive, and that export patterns are not significantly related to human capital intensity. Giving the critical importance of both FDI and human capital development for an economy like Portugal (lagging behind in terms of human capital stock, and seeming to have lost part of its attractiveness as an FDI location), the paper discusses related policy implications. |
| Keywords: | Foreign direct investment (FDI), multinational enterprises (MNEs), human capital, education, technology-based firms (TBFs). |
| JEL: | J24 F23 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:187&r=ino |
| By: | G. Buenstorf; S. Klepper |
| Abstract: | We use new data on the location and background of entrants into the U.S. tire industry to analyze the factors that caused the industry to be so regionally concentrated around Akron, Ohio, a small city with no particular advantages for tire production. We analyze the states where firms entered and for the Ohio entrants the counties where they originated and entered, and we conduct various analyses of how proximity to other tire firms and to demanders affected the longevity of tire producers. We also examine how the heritage of the Ohio entrants influenced their longevity. Our findings suggest that the Akron tire cluster grew primarily through a process of organizational reproduction and heredity rather than through agglomeration economies, as has been commonly posited by scholars of the industry. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2005-08&r=ino |
| By: | K. BAEYENS; T. VANACKER; S. MANIGART |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses venture capitalists’ selection process in biotechnology ventures. Biotech ventures operate in an extremely risky environment making this an interesting research setting. The majority of venture capitalists exclude certain biotech sectors exante because of regulatory uncertainty, the long development process to a market ready product and the difficulty to understand the technology. The more thorough due diligence process focuses on financial, market and technology criteria. Management team capabilities are more important for later stage investors, whereas early stage investors expect to have an impact on the future recruiting of professional managers. Despite the higher risk of biotech investments, we find no evidence that VCs require higher hurdle rates or more complete contracts for these investments, compared to investments in other technology-based companies. The most important reason for not reaching an investment agreement is disagreement over valuation, due to large differences in risk perception between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and the lack of a standard valuation tool for biotech projects. |
| Keywords: | Venture capital; Selection process; Biotechnology. |
| Date: | 2005–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:05/313&r=ino |
| By: | U. Witt |
| Abstract: | In the debate on why firms exist, the question of who chooses between firms and markets and on what basis is rarely addressed. This paper argues that the choice is a core element of the entrepreneurial pursuit of visions or conceptions of business opportunities. To successfully organize resources into the envisioned businesses – be it via firms or markets – resource owners must be coordinated on the entrepreneur’s conception of the business and be motivated to perform properly. To solve the dual problem, the organizational form of the firm offers the entrepreneur unique advantages not feasible under the organizational form of markets. |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2005-10&r=ino |
| By: | Lucia Foster; John Haltiwanger; Chad Syverson |
| Abstract: | There is considerable evidence that producer-level churning contributes substantially to aggregate (industry) productivity growth, as more productive businesses displace less productive ones. However, this research has been limited by the fact that producer-level prices are typically unobserved; thus within-industry price differences are embodied in productivity measures. If prices reflect idiosyncratic demand or market power shifts, high "productivity" businesses may not be particularly efficient, and the literature's findings might be better interpreted as evidence of entering businesses displacing less profitable, but not necessarily less productive, exiting businesses. In this paper, we investigate the nature of selection and productivity growth using data from industries where we observe producer-level quantities and prices separately. We show there are important differences between revenue and physical productivity. A key dissimilarity is that physical productivity is inversely correlated with plant-level prices while revenue productivity is positively correlated with prices. This implies that previous work linking (revenue-based) productivity to survival has confounded the separate and opposing effects of technical efficiency and demand on survival, understating the true impacts of both. We further show that young producers charge lower prices than incumbents, and as such the literature understates the productivity advantage of new producers and the contribution of entry to aggregate productivity growth. |
| JEL: | E2 L1 L6 O4 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11555&r=ino |
| By: | Barla, Philippe |
| Abstract: | This paper tests whether adopting the international norm ISO 14001 significantly impacts environmental performance in Quebec's pulp and paper industry. Using monthly data collected from 37 plants between 1997 and 2003, we show that: i) ISO certification does not lead to a reduction in total suspended solid emissions or the total quantity of rejected process water; ii) discharge of biological oxygen demand appears to be significantly lower in the first year following certification; iii) this latter impact does not appear to last beyond the one-year window. We further show that, contrary to the group of plants that did not adopt the ISO norm, the adopting plants did not experience a significant negative trend in emissions over our sample period. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Management Systems, ISO 14001, Environmental Performance |
| JEL: | Q50 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:laeccr:0503&r=ino |
| By: | Paul Twomey; Karsten Neuhoff |
| Abstract: | It is difficult to elminated all market power in electricity markets and it is therefore frequently suggested that some market power should be tolerated: extra revenues contribute to fixed cost recovery, facilitate investment and increase security of supply. This suggestion implicitly assumes all generation technologies benefit equally from market power. We assess a mixture of conventional and intermittent generation, eg coal plants and wind power. If all output is sold in the spot market, then intermittent generation benefits less from market power than conventional generation. Forward contracts or option contracts reduce the level of market power but bias against intermittent generators persists. |
| Keywords: | market power, technology choice, electricity markets, intermittent output, forward and option contracting |
| JEL: | D42 D43 L12 L13 Q42 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0532&r=ino |
| By: | Jesus Felipe; J. S. L. McCombie |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the question of whether or not a theory of total factor productivity (TFP) is needed in order to explain the documented large per capita income differences across countries. As the argument that it is needed has been reached by calculating TFP empirically, we show that the way the estimates of TFP have been computed is not an innocuous issue. To prove our point, we discuss how two well-known textbooks on growth theory present the arguments and the problems associated with these expositions. We conclude that the tautological nature of the estimates of TFP lies at the heart of an important question that the empirical literature on economic growth has been dealing with during current years. Hence, our arguments cast doubt on the need for a theory of TFP. |
| JEL: | O11 O16 O47 O53 |
| Date: | 2004–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:camaaa:2004-12&r=ino |
| By: | Carolina Castaldi; Giovanni Dosi |
| Abstract: | - |
| Keywords: | Path dependence, irreversibility, increasing returns, learning, lock-in. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2003/02&r=ino |