nep-ino New Economics Papers
on Innovation
Issue of 2006‒12‒04
twenty-one papers chosen by
Koen Frenken
Universiteit Utrecht

  1. Innovating routines and routinizing invention: a study on the diffusion of patent applications in italian regions, 1981-2001 By Quatraro Francesco
  2. Globalization, national innovation systems and response of public policy By Singh, Lakhwinder
  3. Open Innovation Clusters: The Case of Cova da Beira Region (Portugal) By Leitao, Joao
  4. Venture capitalism as a mechanism for knowledge governance By Antonelli Cristiano
  5. Localized technological change and factor markets: constraints and inducements to innovation By Antonelli Cristiano
  6. On R&D Investment By Khazabi, Massoud
  7. Collective knowledge production, costs and the dynamics of technological sysyems By Patrucco Pier Paolo
  8. Technological knowledge as an essential facility By Antonelli Cristiano
  9. Technological knowledge and the theory of the firm: The role of idiosyncratic factors in the quest for the economics of distinctive competences By Antonelli Cristiano
  10. The production of scientific knowledge in Italy: evidence in theoretical applied and technical sciences By Patrucco Pier Paolo
  11. Domestic and International Knowledge Spillovers in the South Korean Manufacturing Industries. By Singh, Lakhwinder
  12. Innovation creation and diffusion in a social network: an agent based approach By Lamieri, Marco; Ietri, Daniele
  13. The governance of localized knowledge: An information economics approach for the economics of knowledge By Antonelli Cristiano
  14. Mind the gap: Convergence of technology and technology of convergence in italian regions, 1982-2001 By Quatraro Francesco
  15. The economics of new information and communucation technology By Antonelli Cristiano; Patrucco Pier Paolo; Quatraro Francesco
  16. Cluster dynamics and innovation in SMEs: the role of culture By Callegati Enrico; Grandi Silvia
  17. MEASURING TECHNOLOGICAL OPPORTUNITY: THE BRAZILIAN CASE By Frederico Rocha; Ana Urraca Ruiz; Bruno Campos
  18. Intellectual property and the development of cultural discticts national examles By Saha Homai
  19. The economics of universtity : a knowledge governance approach By Antonelli Cristiano
  20. Computer equipment as general purpose technologies: the effects on productivity in the italian case, 1995-2002 By Quatraro Francesco
  21. Models of knowledge and systems of governance By Antonelli Cristiano

  1. By: Quatraro Francesco (University of Turin)
    Abstract: In this paper we investigate the patterns of diffusion of industrialized R&D activities within fmns' organizational routines, as signalled by the diffusion of patents applications per capita. Innovation and routines afe hence viewed as two opposite, bui yet c1osely intertwined aspects crucial to fmns' expansiono The analysis is contrasted against the specific features of the Italian production system, characterized by two distinct models of capitalismo The adoption of the new routine follows the logistic time path, and North-eastern and Adriatic regions show up faster diffusion speed than North-western regions. In a fÌ"amework in which physical and social technologies co-evolve with the institutional setting, the hypothesis of a catching up driven by the shift fÌ"om the Schumpeter Mark I to Mark II models found support, in which innovation and R&D carried out within universities and public labs played a crucial role.
    Date: 2006–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200606&r=ino
  2. By: Singh, Lakhwinder
    Abstract: Abstract This paper attempts to set the significance of public innovation policies in contemporary developing countries in the context of the fast pace of globalization. It is fairly well established both in theory and practice that investment expenditure on innovation projects is likely to be low if left in the hands of private economic agents as they have a tendency to under-invest due to the ‘public good’ nature of the outcomes of R&D. However, policy in developing economies seldom takes seriously the importance of investment in innovation projects. This has not been without far-reaching implications for the growth and development performance of developing countries in general. The paper explores the role of international institutions and national governments in the task of strengthening national innovation systems through innovative interventions at national and international levels.
    Keywords: globalization of technology role of state knowledge gaps global public good innovative strategy developing countries international institutions intellectual property rights innovation policy
    JEL: O38 O34 O3
    Date: 2006–11–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:641&r=ino
  3. By: Leitao, Joao
    Abstract: This paper aims to reveal the role played by open innovation schemes in the development of new competitive advantages. Furthermore, it aims to present a normative model for networking knowledge clusters, that is, traditional clusters that are applied to the case of the Cova da Beira region (Portugal) such as Agro-Food, Textile, and Public Sector; and a set of emergent clusters that include Bioscience, Biotechnology, Multimedia, Tourism, Health, and Knowledge. In this paper, the basic framework about clusters was expanded, taking as reference the studies of Porter (1985, 1990, 1998, 2005), Feldman (1994), Porter and Stern (2001), and Furman, Porter and Stern (2002). The problematic related to open innovation schemes is integrated in this framework in order to reveal the importance of building new kinds of open innovation networks that don’t involve the geographic concentration of the enterprises. After making a literature review in order to present the analytical framework that includes the clusters theory, a normative model is presented through the development of a case study applied to the Cova da Beira region (Portugal). This option is due to the existence of a local University that has historically interfaced the launching of open-innovation spin-offs into local and international clusters networks. The present paper reveals a high degree of originality, since it contributes to the introduction of the concept of open innovation into the literature about clusters. The main point is that open innovation provides two main implications to build up and leverage both internal and external knowledge into international clusters networks. First, this study presents a basic implication for several agents such as, entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers; that is, universities are principals in interfacing the sources of open innovation and the transfer of processes of knowledge into the international clusters networks. Second, it promotes the inclusion of the issue related to the creation of international and institutional networks in the short agenda of the referred agents in order to promote the introduction of new open innovation schemes.
    Keywords: Clusters; Entrepreneurship; Institutional Networks; Open Innovation.
    JEL: R3 M13 R11 M20
    Date: 2006–10–16
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:488&r=ino
  4. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Abstract: Venture capitaIism-an outcome of the ICT Revolution, which made its appearance first in the US during the late 1970s and early 1980s and then in other countries including Israel during the 1990s-, explains the new pervasive role of smaIl firms in the introduction of technologicàl innovations. We elaborate the interpretative hypothesis that venture capitalism is based upon the identification of economies of scope in the transactions of technological knowledge bundled with managerial competence, reputation, screening procedures and equity and transformed into knowledge-intensive property rights that are traded in new specialized financial markets. We argue that this model is part of a broader change in national system of innovation of advanced countries, and it is a powerful mechanism for the production, dissemination and integration of knowledge in advanced capitalistic economies, and thereby a main driver of 'knowledge-based' growth.
    Date: 2006–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200604&r=ino
  5. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Abstract: Information economics provides important tools to articulate an economics analysis of the generation and exploitation of localized technological knowledge. Localized technological knowledge is an emerging property of a system of learning and interacting agents where internal and external knowledge, inductive learning and deductive research afe essential, complementary and non-disposable inputs. As a result, localized technological knowledge is a highly heterogeneous dynamic process characterized by varying levels of appropriability, tacitness, and indivisibility, which take the fonns of complementarity and modularity, cumulability, compositeness, fungeability and organized with a variety of knowledge governance mechanisms. Infonnation economics provides basic guidance to elaborate an integrated framework able to understand the matching between types of knowledge and governance mechanisms bothi in generation and exploitation.
    Date: 2005–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200503&r=ino
  6. By: Khazabi, Massoud
    Abstract: The paper presents a theoretical model of R&D investment and extensively studies the capitalization policy of development-related costs. It is shown that a firm’s R&D investment policy and capitalizing related costs are influenced by a set of variables such as stock market effects and corporate income tax rates. These results are sharper when spill-over effects are introduced. Interest rates, tax rates, production’s marginal cost, stock market indices and speed of development benefits’ revelation would alter the firm’s disclosure and innovation policies conspicuously.
    Keywords: R&D; Development; Innovation; Capitalization; Expensing; Corporate Income Tax; Disclosure
    JEL: L12 L13 L51
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:172&r=ino
  7. By: Patrucco Pier Paolo (University of Turin)
    Abstract: TechnologicaI knowledge can be understood as a collective good only when its production requires the absorption and integration of external knowledge. Such externaI knowledge is the outcome of R&D investments that cannot be fully appropriated by firms and generate spillovers. The exploitation of such knowledge spillovers requires specific investments in knowledge communication and absorption, which brings about specific costs. These costs afe affected by the structural and dynamic characteristics of technologicaI systems in terms of the knowledge base, the variety of actors and the communication infrastructures and processes. This paper anaIyzes the costs of collective knowledge production and their implications for the way in which the firm chooses the mix of internai and externaI knowledge. This choice in turo shapes the evolution of technological systems.
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200506&r=ino
  8. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Date: 2005–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200504&r=ino
  9. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Abstract: This paper elaborates a theory of the firm that combines the intuitions of Edith Penrose with the analysis of localized technological knowledge. The analysis of the characteristics of knowledge indivisibility and of idiosyncratic factors pIay a key role in shaping the intentionai strategy of firms about the direction of technology strategies. The firm is viewed as a Iearning agent that, induced by market forces and buiIding upon Iearning processes, elaborates and impiements intentionally strategies of knowledge generation. These strategies include the necessary identification of the externai sources of compiementary technoiogicai knowledge and of the idiosyncratic production factors that is convenient to lise intensiveIy. Learning, in fact is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the generation of new knowledge. The anaIysis of the conditions for the intentional generation of technoiogicai and organizationai knowledge becomes crociato The analysis of the combined effects of internai Iearning, externai knowledge and intensive lise of idiosyncratic factors by means of the introduction of biased technological change CUlli intentional decision­making provides key inputs to understanding the path dependent and idiosyncratic features of the knowledge generated by the firm as the basis for its distinctive competences.
    Date: 2005–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200507&r=ino
  10. By: Patrucco Pier Paolo (University of Turin)
    Abstract: The paper presents preliminary empirical evidence on the production of scientific knowledge in I ta1y, in theoretical sciences (physics), applied sciences (chemistry) and technical sciences (engineering and petrology). It elaborates on an originaI dataset of publications and citations for 2,673 Italian researchers, distributed across 61 universities, covering the years between 1990 and 2004. According to a well-established tradition of studies in the economics of science, the results show that individuaI distribution is quite asymmetric, with very few researchers accounting for a great amount of scientific output. More interestingly, the paper also shows that there afe important differences in terms of asymmetric distribution when the different disciplines, universities and academic positions of the researchers afe compared. These differences open the way to interpretation in terms of two main factors. Firstty, the various disciplines can be characterised by specific knowledge bases, learning practices, organisation of scientific labour, and communication norms. Secondly, specific weaknesses in the hiring, incentive and monitoring schemes at discipline and university level can explain different degrees of asymmetry. Both these factors bave important implications for a research agenda on the governance of science. Finally, the paper shows that, at the aggregate level, scientific productivity benefit from a concentration of R&D expenditures only to a minor extent, and subject 10 decreasing returns. The effect of extemalities stemming from R&D investments is limited. The scope of the concentration of R&D resources can therefore be questioned.
    Date: 2006–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200601&r=ino
  11. By: Singh, Lakhwinder
    Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between the productivity growth and both domestic and international knowledge spillovers in the Korean manufacturing industries, using panel data for twenty eight industries over the period 1970-2000. To empirically verify the extent of domestic and international knowledge spillovers we have followed endogenous growth approach and wisdom from new international trade theory. We find strong productivity effects from industry’s own R&D as well as domestic and foreign knowledge spillovers. International knowledge spillovers transmitted by trade played dominant role in explaining productivity growth in the Korean manufacturing industries during the 1970s and 1980s, but the international knowledge spillovers did not play any significant role in the 1990s. This empirical finding has strong implications for the Korean technology policy as well as for the strict intellectual property rights regime enacted by the WTO.
    Keywords: Knowledge spillovers; Productivity growth; Manufacturing industry; South Korea
    JEL: R11 O11
    Date: 2006–10–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:98&r=ino
  12. By: Lamieri, Marco; Ietri, Daniele
    Abstract: Market is not only the result of the behaviour of agents, as we can find other forms of contact and communication. Many of them are determined by proximity conditions in some kind of space: in this paper we pay a particular attention to relational space, that is the space determined by the relationships between individuals. The paper starts from a brief account on theoretical and empirical literature on social networks. Social networks represent people and their relationships as networks, in which individuals are nodes and the relationships between them are ties. In particular, graph theory is used in literature in order to demonstrate some properties of social networks summarised in the concept of Small Worlds. The concept may be used to explain how some phenomena involving relations among agents have effects on multiple different geographical scales, involving both the local and the global scale. The empirical section of the paper is introduced by a brief summary of simulation techniques in social science and economics as a way to investigate complexity. The model investigates the dynamics of a population of firms (potential innovators) and consumers interacting in a space defined as a social network. Consumers are represented in the model in order to create a competitive environment pushing enterprises into innovative process (we refer to Schumpeter’s definition): from interaction between consumers and firms innovation emerges as a relational good.
    Keywords: Innovation; small world; computational economics; network; complexity
    JEL: L20 L10 C63 O33 D24
    Date: 2004–04–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:445&r=ino
  13. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Abstract: Information economics provides important tools to articulate an economics analysis of the generation and exploitation of localized technological knowledge. Localized technological knowledge is an emerging property of a system of learning and interacting agents where internal and external knowledge, inductive learning and deductive research afe essential, complementary and non-disposable inputs. As a result, localized technological knowledge is a highly heterogeneous dynamic process characterized by varying levels of appropriability, tacitness, and indivisibility, which take the fonns of complementarity and modularity, cumulability, compositeness, fungeability and organized with a variety of knowledge governance mechanisms. Infonnation economics provides basic guidance to elaborate an integrated framework able to understand the matching between types of knowledge and governance mechanisms bothi in generation and exploitation.
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200502&r=ino
  14. By: Quatraro Francesco (University of Turin)
    Abstract: University is becoming the beam of the new emerging mode of governance of the generation and dissemination of knowledge as it reveals remarkable institutional advantages both to provide a solution to the knowledge trade-off and to reduce agency costs. The typical academic labor relation emerges as an appropriate institutional device to handle the principal-agent problems when creative talents are required. The unique institutional setup of the academic system creates the supply of certified skills that are ready to operate on a professional base. Such academic consultants can be paid on an ex-post per job base matching their variable costs only. This supply leads to the creation of a specific market for research services where the demand is provided by the knowledge outsourcing of corporations.
    Date: 2006–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200603&r=ino
  15. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin); Patrucco Pier Paolo (University of Turin); Quatraro Francesco (University of Turin)
    Date: 2006–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200609&r=ino
  16. By: Callegati Enrico; Grandi Silvia
    Abstract: The territorial agglomeration of interdependent enterprises has a positive influence on the competitiveness, the performance and the development of national economies. This is a widely accepted intuition in economie theory, and it dates back to the works of Alfred Marshall. In particular, these phenomena have been depicted through the theoretical framework of the "IndustriaI Districts". Another signifieant impulse to the debate was provided by the GREMI (Groupe de Recherche Européen sur les Milieux Innovateurs), through the concepì of milieu innovateur. Later, Michael Porter's studies and dissemination works granted great visibility to the dynamics of agglomeration of industries, which since then afe better known among policy makers as "clusters". At any rate, the importance of the cultural element in the concepts of "cluster", milieu, and "district" is undeniable. This is evident also when observing the phenomenon from a historieal perspective. Evidence shows that the strength of a loeal economie system, and its eapacity to grow and 10 innovate, afe closely related 10 the pattern of knowledge (thus cultural) stratifieation, to the territory itself and to learning eapacity. Moreover, one can observe that cultural socio­economie elements afe embedded in technology, thus they play a key role when considering the dynamics of innovation process and growth opportunities for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). With this respect, the paper wìll present some relevant case studies of technical assistance earried out by in the field of industriai cooperation with several non-ED Mediterranean countries. In particular, the paper will present those case studies where initiatives were sei up with a view 10 encourage cluster dynamics in regions (i.e. Aleppo, Syria or Yazd, Iran), where the main sector of activity (textile and clothing industry) is his1orically and culturally based. In particular, several factors were involved, such as the cohesion of stakeholders for the creation of innovation, the development of new products, and the competìtive advantages for the loeal productìve system. The project approach and its conclusions confirm the fundamental role of culture and culture-based activities in the process of economie development, especially when considering SMEs, where culture represents both an embedded strategie foundatìon for the creation of cluster dynamics, and a signifieant potential for their future development affecting innovation trajectories.
    Date: 2005–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:eblawp:200503&r=ino
  17. By: Frederico Rocha; Ana Urraca Ruiz; Bruno Campos
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2006:7&r=ino
  18. By: Saha Homai
    Date: 2005–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:eblawp:200501&r=ino
  19. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Abstract: University is becoming the beam of the new emerging mode of governance of the generation and dissemination of knowledge as it reveals remarkable institutional advantages both to provide a solution to the knowledge trade-off and to reduce agency costs. The typical academic labor relation emerges as an appropriate institutional device to handle the principal-agent problems when creative talents are required. The unique institutional setup of the academic system creates the supply of certified skills that are ready to operate on a professional base. Such academic consultants can be paid on an ex-post per job base matching their variable costs only. This supply leads to the creation of a specific market for research services where the demand is provided by the knowledge outsourcing of corporations.
    Date: 2006–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200602&r=ino
  20. By: Quatraro Francesco (University of Turin)
    Abstract: In this paper we investigate the impact of computer investments on productivity, and eventually check far the existence of development dynamics stimulating such investments. While a large number of studies can be found at the firm level, there is a substantial lack of analyses at the macro-leve1. We focus on 28 Italian manufacturing and service sectors, aver the period 1995-2002. Controlling far inter-industry spillovers, ICTs investments proved to positively and significant1y affect productivity. Moreover those sectors with lower levels of productivity in 1995 showed up higher average annual growth rates of investments in computer equipment. The case far tailored policy actions is eventually discussed.
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200608&r=ino
  21. By: Antonelli Cristiano (University of Turin)
    Date: 2005–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:200501&r=ino

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