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on Innovation |
| By: | Tuomo Nikulainen; Raine Hermans; Martti Kulvik |
| Keywords: | patents, patent citations, biotechnology |
| JEL: | O30 M21 L25 |
| Date: | 2006–10–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:dpaper:1048&r=ino |
| By: | Camilla Lenzi (CESPRI-Bocconi University, Milano,Italy.) |
| Abstract: | Knowledge transfer issues are of great interest in researchers and policy makers agenda because of its implications in terms of innovation diffusion and economic welfare. Among the others, workers’ mobility, namely highly skilled ones, is considered as one of the most influential channels for knowledge transmission. This paper examines the patterns of mobility of a group of Italian inventors in the pharmaceutical sector. New empirical evidence is discussed and results of the analysis support the idea that workers’ mobility is an important mechanism of valuable knowledge diffusion. Moreover, the paper critically discusses methodological issues concerning measures of inventors’ mobility through patent statistics. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge transfer, Mobility, Inventor, Productivity. |
| JEL: | J60 O30 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp182&r=ino |
| By: | Francesco Lissoni (University of Brescia and CESPRI-Bocconi University,Italy.); Bulat Sanditov (CESPRI-Bocconi University, Italy and MERIT-Maastricht University, The Netherlands.); Gianluca Tarasconi (CESPRI-Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.) |
| Abstract: | The paper describes the methodogy used to build a database on academic inventors from France, Italy, and Sweden (1978-2004), which was delivered to the European Commission as part of the KEINS project (Knowledge-Based Entrepreneurship: Innovation, Networks and Systems), and will provide the basis for future publications. It provides an overview of the database contents, as well as information on access rules and on related datasets by CESPRI-Università Bocconi. The database is the result of joint efforts by CESPRI-Università Bocconi (Milan, IT), BETA – Universitè “Louis Pasteur” (Strasbourg, FR), IMIT-Chalmers University (Gotheborg, SE), Umea Universitet (SE), and Università degli studi di Brescia (IT). |
| Keywords: | University patents, European universities, Patent database. |
| JEL: | C81 I23 O34 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp181&r=ino |
| By: | Carlos Rosell; Ajay Agrawal |
| Abstract: | The rate of university patenting increased dramatically during the 1980s. To what extent did the knowledge flow patterns associated with public sector inventions change as university administrators and faculty seemingly became more commercially oriented? Using a Herfindahl-type measure of patent assignee concentration and employing a difference-in-differences estimation to compare university to firm patents across two time periods, we find that the university diffusion premium (the degree to which knowledge flows from patented university inventions are more widely distributed across assignees than those of firms) declined by over half during the 1980s. In addition, we find that the university diversity premium (the degree to which knowledge inflows used to develop patented university inventions are drawn from a less concentrated set of prior art holders than those used by firms) also declined by over half. Moreover, in both cases the estimated increase in knowledge flow concentration is largely driven by universities experienced in patenting, suggesting these phenomena are not likely to dissipate with experience. |
| JEL: | I23 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12640&r=ino |
| By: | Stefano Brusoni (CESPRI-CRORA, Bocconi University and Silvio Tronchetti-Provera Foundation, Milano,Italy.); Elena Cefis (Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University and Bergamo University); Luigi Orsenigo (University of Brescia and CESPRI, Bocconi University, Italy) |
| Abstract: | The idea that innovation leads to positive economic performance has become a sort of truism in recent years. However, empirical evidence showing that innovating organizations and countries outperform non-innovating ones remains scant and scattered. In many ways, the jury is still out. First of all, there is still little agreement about what ‘performance’ means. The range of indicators adopted in the literature varies widely: financial performance, market shares, new products introduced into the market, patents, GDP growth, and so on. Second, the time lag between innovative efforts and performance is often so large, and so industry specific, that it remains just very hard to produce reliable estimates. Third, it is still unclear at what level of analysis one should go looking for positive economic performance. Studies exist that look at the relationship between performance and innovation at the level of design teams, projects, firms, networks, industries, and countries. This paper aims at critically reviewing the wide, yet remarkably scattered literature that aims at measuring and explaining the relationship between innovation and performance. It builds upon an extensive review of contributions in economics, management and organisation sciences to identify trends and results that are consistent and robust. In a nutshell, this paper argues that country- and sectoral-level approaches which emphasize the role that knowledge, spillovers and human capital play in fostering economic growth trough innovation need to consider the fundamental role played by competition among heterogeneous organisations in igniting the growth process. In this respect, micro-and firm-level studies can provide useful insights about how competition fosters learning, innovation and ultimately growth. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Growth, Knowledge, Performance, Competition. |
| JEL: | O14 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp179&r=ino |
| By: | Stefano Breschi (CESPRI-Bocconi University, Milan, Italy); Francesco Lissoni (Brescia University and CESPRI-Bocconi University, Italy) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we exploit new data on US inventors in Organic Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotechnology to revisit the JTH test of the localization of knowledge spillovers (Jaffe, Trajtenberg, and Henderson; 1993). We find that inventors who patent across different companies contribute extensively to the observed citation patterns, both directly (through personal self-citations) and indirectly, by linking the various companies via a social network conducive to more citations. To the extent that the geographical mobility of these “cross-firm” inventors is quite limited, the resulting social networks and citations patterns are found to be bounded in space. We conclude that spatial distance, as measured in the JTH experiment, is just a proxy for a much more important variable, such as social distance between inventors. In a similar vein, we show that technological distance, introduced by Thompson and Fox-Kean (2005) to question the soundness of the JTH experiment, is also a proxy of social distance. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge diffusion, Localized spillovers, Social networks |
| JEL: | O33 R12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp184&r=ino |
| By: | Priit Vahter |
| Abstract: | This paper provides some stylised facts about differences in labour productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) in Estonian firms and about the role of selected determinants of productivity differences. Enterprise level panel data of the whole population of Estonian firms from years 1995-2002 is used. It appears that the variation of productivity indicators in Estonia is much greater than in Western Europe. Although there is a lot of entry and exit of firms, there is not much movement within the productivity distribution of surviving .rms. It is found that both innovation and less concentrated market structure seem to be positively related to higher productivity of firms |
| Keywords: | productivity, competition, innovation, market structure |
| JEL: | G3 L2 O31 O4 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eea:boewps:wp2006-07&r=ino |
| By: | Dietmar Harhoff (Munich School of Management, LMU München); Stefan Wagner (Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the duration of the patent examination process at the European Patent Office (EPO). Our data contain information related to the patent’s economic and technical relevance, EPO capacity and workload as well as novel citation measures which are derived from the EPO’s search reports. In our multivariate analysis we estimate competing risk specifications in order to characterize differences in the processes leading to a withdrawal of the application by the applicant, a refusal of the patent grant by the examiner or an actual patent grant. Highly cited applications are approved faster by the EPO than less important ones, but they are also withdrawn less quickly by the applicant. The process duration increases for all outcomes with the application’s complexity, originality, number of references (backward citations) in the search report and with the EPO’s workload at the filing date. Endogenous applicant behavior becomes apparent in other results: more controversial claims lead to slower grants, but faster withdrawals, while relatively well-documented applications (identified by a high share of applicant references appearing in the search report) are approved faster and take longer to be withdrawn. |
| Keywords: | patents, patent examination, survival analysis, patent citations, European Patent Office |
| JEL: | C15 C41 D73 O34 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trf:wpaper:170&r=ino |
| By: | Genesove, David |
| Abstract: | A firm that introduces a new good enjoys monopoly profits for some initial period of time. What happens subsequently depends upon the relative strength of knowledge diffusion and increasing dominance. The first effect enhances challengers’ ability to develop the product, erodes the incumbent’s monopoly power, while the second, which concerns the relative net cost of the incumbent to challengers in production, strengthens it. This paper exploits the near total disruption of imports of German dyes to the United States during World War I and the immediate post-War period, and the subsequent re-entry of the Germans to the market, to separately estimate the first effect. The results show that while (a) the probability of a dye was imported in 1913-1914 bore no relation to its year of discovery, (b) the probability it was produced in 1917 by the new American manufacturers was greater by one and a half percent per year, the earlier the year of discovery. Coupled with the estimated semi-elasticity of the probability of production with respect to the volume of imports in 1914, and assuming prospective profits were proportional to that volume, one obtains that every additional year since discovery decreased the expected cost of developing the dye by 19 to 25%. The paper shows, additionally, that after German imports were able to resume, the probability of a dye being imported in 1923, given that the Americans were already producing it, was independent of the year of discovery – implying that the discovery year is an appropriate proxy for the amount of development relevant knowledge that had diffused through the industry. |
| Keywords: | dyes; increasing dominance; innovation; knowledge diffusion |
| JEL: | L65 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5890&r=ino |
| By: | Rachel Levy; Pascale Roux; Sandrine Wolff |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the modalities according to which a large European university collaborates with firms by exploring its relational portfolio. We address this issue by exploiting a database listing more than 1000 firms having collaborated with the University Louis Pasteur between 1990 and 2002. First, using multi-correspondence analysis, we derive a four-classes typology of collaborative behaviours, each of them presenting a strong internal coherence. We obtain four distinct collaboration patterms, for which the frequency of interactions and the exclusive vs. open character of the relationships are discriminating features. Second, using a multinomial logit estimation, we show how this diversity is connected to some individual attributes of the firms: size, legal status, industrial sector and geographic distance from the public partner. |
| Keywords: | Science-industry collaborations; Typology; Industrial collaboration patterns. |
| JEL: | L21 L31 O32 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2006-27&r=ino |
| By: | Rodney Ludema; Taizo Takeno (Department of Economics, Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of import tariffs on the decision of a foreign monopolist to adopt “clean” technology – technology that reduces the flow of a negative cross-border externality per unit of exports. The clean technology is assumed to increase the marginal cost of production relative to the dirty technology, but only the firm knows the extent of the increase. Under complete information, we show that, despite its protectionist motivation, the importing country’s optimal tariff induces the firm to adopt the clean technology if and only if it is globally efficient to do so. Under incomplete information, this efficiency property is disrupted. If the optimal tariff is decreasing in the marginal cost, then it leads the firm to bias its choice in favor of dirty technology. Classification-JEL Codes: F13, F18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~06-06-09&r=ino |
| By: | Paul Gompers; Anna Kovner; Josh Lerner; David Scharfstein |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that a large component of success in entrepreneurship and venture capital can be attributed to skill. We show that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are more likely to succeed than first time entrepreneurs and those who have previously failed. Funding by more experienced venture capital firms enhances the chance of success, but only for entrepreneurs without a successful track record. Similarly, more experienced venture capitalists are able to identify and invest in first time entrepreneurs who are more likely to become serial entrepreneurs. Investments by venture capitalists in successful serial entrepreneurs generate higher returns for their venture capital investors. This finding provides further support for the role of skill in both entrepreneurship and venture capital. |
| JEL: | G24 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12592&r=ino |
| By: | Cörvers Frank; Dupuy Arnaud (ROA wp) |
| Abstract: | We develop a new model to explain the occupational structure of Dutchsectors of industry. The non-homothetic production function we use takesaccount of capital-skill complementarities, skill-biased technological changeand the interaction between labour demand and supply.We estimate the structural parameters of the model for the periodbetween 1988 and 2003 using system dynamic OLS techniques to accountfor the employment dynamic dependence across occupations and sectors ofindustry. The employment series by occupation and sector have both a longrun and a short-run relationship with value added, capital and R&D. Theshort run dynamics can further be decomposed into intra and intersectoraldynamics.We find that both the long run and short run relationships explaina significant part of employment by occupation and sector of industry.Moreover, employment by occupation and sector is significantly affectedby both the intra- and intersectoral dynamics.JEL Classification: J21, J23.Keywords: Labour demand, Occupational structure, Skill-biased technologicalchange, Capital-skill complementarity. |
| Keywords: | Economics ; |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umarow:2006005&r=ino |