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on Innovation |
| By: | Alex Coad (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne et LEM); Rekha Rao (LEM,Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy) |
| Abstract: | How do financial markets respond to firms' efforts at innovation ? To answer this question, we mesure innovation by creating a synthetic indicator based on a firm's recent history of R&D expenditure and patent applications. We focus on four 2-digit "complex technology" manufacturing sectors that have been hand-picked according to their high propensities to innovate. Whilst standard regression techniques find a positive relationship between innovation and growth, quantile regression analysis adds a new dimension to the literature. We identify those "superstar" firms with the highest stock market valuations and show that these firms owe a lot of their success to their previous efforts at innovation. However, there are also other firms whose attempts to innovate are virtually ignored by financial markets. Our results emphasize the fundamental uncertainty of R&D. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, market value, quantile regression, patents, Tobin's q. |
| JEL: | C61 C62 D20 D46 D51 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:r06069&r=ino |
| By: | Hielke Buddelmeyer (University of Melbourne and IZA Bonn); Paul H. Jensen (University of Melbourne); Elizabeth Webster (University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | While many firms compete through the development of new technologies and products, it is well known that new-to-the-world innovation is inherently risky and therefore may increase the probability of firm death. However, many existing studies consistently find a negative association between innovative activity and firm death. We argue that this may occur because authors fail to distinguish between innovation investments and innovation capital. Using an unbalanced panel of over 290,000 Australian companies, we estimate a piecewiseconstant exponential hazard rate model to examine the relationship between innovation and survival and find that current innovation investments increase the probability of death while innovation capital lowers it. |
| Keywords: | firm survival, innovation |
| JEL: | O31 O32 C41 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2386&r=ino |
| By: | Emin M. Dinlersoz (University of Houston); Pedro Pereira (Autoridade da Concorrência) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes retailers’ adoption of e-commerce in a technology adoption race framework. An Internet-based firm with no traditional market presence competes with an established traditional firm to adopt the e-commerce technology and sell to a growing number of consumers with on-line shopping capability. The focus of the analysis is on identifying how consumer loyalty, differences in firms’ technology and consumers’ preferences across the traditional versus the virtual market, and expansion in market size made possible by the Internet can affect the timing and sequence of adoption by firms, as well as the post-adoption evolution of prices. The model’s implications are used to discuss empirical evidence on adoption patterns across different product categories and firm types. |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pca:wpaper:13&r=ino |
| By: | Désiré Vencatachellum (IEA, HEC Montréal); Bruno Versaevel |
| Abstract: | There is evidence that competing firms delegate R&D to the same independent profit-maximizing laboratory. We draw on this stylilzed fact to construct a model where two firms in the same industry offer transfer payments in exchange of user-specific R&D services from a common laboratory. Inter-firm and within-laboratory externalities affect the intensiti of competition among delegating firms on the intermediate market for technology. Whether competition is relatively soft or tight is reflected by each firm’s transfer payment offers to the laboratory. This in turn determines the laboratory’s capacity to earn profits, R&D outcomes, delegating firms’ profits, and social welfare. We compare the delegated R&D game to two other one where firms (i) cooperatively conduct in-house R&D, and (ii) non-cooperatively choose in-house R&D. The delegated R&D game Pareto dominates the other two games, and the laboratory earns positive profits, only if within-laboratory R&D services are sufficiently complementary, but inter-firm spillovers are sufficiently low. We find no room for policy intervention, because the privately profitable decision to delegate R&D, when the laboratory participates, always benefits consumers. |
| Keywords: | Research and development, externalities, common agency. |
| JEL: | C72 L13 O31 |
| Date: | 2005–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iea:carech:0501&r=ino |
| By: | Görling, Stefan |
| Abstract: | As triple-helix like research funding is growing in popularity, the need for evaluating the success of such programs is growing. During the last 30 years, a number of attempts have been made to assess whether certain technology funding has been successful or not. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of these attempts as well as suggest that we must look beyond simple valuemeters as patent creation rate in order to fully understand the process of technology transfer. |
| Keywords: | technology transfer, assessment, patent, innovation management |
| Date: | 2006–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:pinkwp:31&r=ino |
| By: | Susanto Basu; John Fernald |
| Abstract: | Many people point to information and communications technology (ICT) as the key for understanding the acceleration in productivity in the United States since the mid-1990s. Stories of ICT as a 'general purpose technology' suggest that measured TFP should rise in ICT-using sectors (reflecting either unobserved accumulation of intangible organizational capital, spillovers, or both), but with a long lag. Contemporaneously, however, investments in ICT may be associated with lower TFP as resources are diverted to reorganization and learning. We find that U.S. industry results are consistent with GPT stories: the acceleration after the mid-1990s was broadbased--located primarily in ICT-using industries rather than ICT-producing industries. Furthermore, industry TFP accelerations in the 2000s are positively correlated with (appropriately weighted) industry ICT capital growth in the 1990s. Indeed, as GPT stories would suggest, after controlling for past ICT investment, industry TFP accelerations are negatively correlated with increases in ICT usage in the 2000s. |
| Keywords: | Information technology ; Labor productivity ; Industrial productivity |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2006-29&r=ino |
| By: | Cyrus C. M. Mody |
| Abstract: | Longstanding debates about the role of the university in national culture and the global economy have entered a new phase in the past decade in most industrialized, and several industrializing, countries. One important focus of this debate is corporate involvement in academic scientific research. Proponents of the academic capitalism say that corporate involvement makes the university leaner, more agile, better able to respond to the needs of the day. Critics say that corporate involvement leaves society without the independent, critical voices traditionally lodged in universities. I argue that a science and technology studies perspective, using case studies of research communities, can push this debate in directions envisioned by neither proponents nor critics. I use the development and commercialization of the scanning tunneling microscope and the atomic force microscope as an example of how research communities continually redraw the line between corporate and academic institutions. |
| JEL: | N8 O17 O3 O31 O33 Z1 Z13 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12700&r=ino |
| By: | Jérémy Laurent-Lucchetti (IEA, HEC Montréal); Andrew Leach (IEA, HEC Montréal) |
| Abstract: | We propose a model of climate change consistent with four principal stylized facts. First, the benefits and costs of climate change mitigation policies are not evenly distributed across generations. Second, capital accumulation is not determined jointly with emissions policy, but rather as a choice made by self-interested economic agents. Third, most research and development activity in the energy sector is undertaken by private firms. Fourth, significant imperfections exist in the market for technology. The model is calibrated to match global trends in GWP, energy production, and investment in research and development, and is used for the evaluation of policies including research and development subsidies and carbon taxes. |
| Keywords: | Alternative energy sources; climate change; technological change; research and development; induced innovation. |
| JEL: | J24 J61 C23 C35 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iea:carech:0602&r=ino |
| By: | Wixted, Brian |
| Abstract: | The literature on clustering that has developed over the last two decades or so has given us a wealth of information on the formation and competitiveness of places in the global economy. Similarly, the systems literature on innovation has been valuable in moving the debate around technology from a focus on the entrepreneur to one than encompasses institutions, government, suppliers, customers and universities. However, there remains an important limit to this research; the borders of political jurisdictions, usually nation states, typically delineate the studies. It is argued in this paper that during an era when the international architecture of production relationships is changing, this view of systems is hindering its further development. This paper briefly examines what we have learnt of innovation systems, including clustering and also explores the limitations of this work. From this foundation it is proposed in this paper that a framework which understands clusters as nodes within extra-territorial networks is a promising approach for internationalising the systems of innovation perspective. The advantage of the approach presented here is that it can simultaneously capture regional specialisations and be disaggregated enough to apply on a technology / sectoral basis. Another principle advantage is that such a framework goes someway towards an understanding of interregional and international trade that is consistent with what other studies have shown of the development of innovation within particular geographic locations. The paper draws from extensive data analysis of industrial interdependencies that cross national borders to support the case for cluster complexes that transcend regional and national borders. |
| Keywords: | innovation systems; clusters; internationalisation |
| JEL: | R12 O30 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:846&r=ino |
| By: | Baldini, Nicola |
| Abstract: | Starting from a review of more than 50 papers, this work will present a detailed overview of threats stemming from university patenting activity, then it will draw some policy implications and it will conclude with some suggestions for further research. |
| Keywords: | university patents; entrepreneurial university; open science; secrecy |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2006–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:853&r=ino |
| By: | Inés Macho-Stadler; David Pérez-Castrillo |
| Abstract: | We analyze a model where firms chose a production technology which, together with some random event, determines the final emission level. We consider the coexistence of two alternative technologies: a "clean" technology, and a "dirty" technology. The environmental regulation is based on taxes over reported emissions, and on penalties over unreported emissions. We show that the optimal inspection policy is a cut-off strategy, for several scenarios concerning the observability of the adoption of the clean technology and the cost of adopting it. We also show that the optimal inspection policy induces the firm to adopt the clean technology if the adoption cost is not too high, but the cost levels for which the firm adopts it depend on the scenario. |
| Keywords: | Production technology, random emissions, environmental taxes, optimal monitoring policy. |
| JEL: | K32 K42 D82 |
| Date: | 2006–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:672.06&r=ino |
| By: | Ingrid Ott (Institute of Economics, University of Lüneburg); Christian Papilloud (Institute of Cultural Theory, University of Lüneburg) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops the concept of converging institutions and applies it to nanotechnologies. Starting point are economic and socialogical perspectives. We focus on the entire innovation process of nanotechnologies beginning with research and development over diffusion via downstream sectors until implementation in final goods. The concept is applied to the nano-cluster in the metropolitan region of Grenoble and a possible converging institution is identified. |
| Keywords: | converging institutions, converging technologies, nanotechnologies, systemic risks |
| Date: | 2006–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lue:wpaper:32&r=ino |
| By: | Oleg Badunenko (European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany); Michael Fritsch (University of Jena, Faculty of Economics, Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, and Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)); Andreas Stephan (European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the factors that explain the level of technical efficiency of a firm. In our empirical analysis, we use a unique sample of about 35,000 firms in 256 industries from the German Cost Structure Census over the years 1992-2004. We estimate the technical efficiency of the firms and relate it to firm- and industry-specific characteristics. One third of the explanatory power is due to industry effects. Size accounts for another 25 percent and the headquarters? location explains ten percent of the variation in efficiency. Most other firm characteristics such as ownership structure, legal form, age of the firm and outsourcing activities have an extremely small explanatory power. R&D activity does not exert any positive influence on technical efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Frontier analysis, determinants of technical efficiency, firm performance, industry effects, regional effects. |
| JEL: | D24 L10 L25 |
| Date: | 2006–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jen:jenasw:2006-33&r=ino |