nep-ino New Economics Papers
on Innovation
Issue of 2007‒05‒12
sixteen papers chosen by
Koen Frenken
Utrecht University

  1. National Innovation Systems in Angola and Mozambique By Manuel, Eduardo
  2. Multinational Firms and Innovation: The Role of R&D Collaboration, Markets and Ownership By Lööf, Hans
  3. Location and R&D Alliances in the European ICT Industry By Rajneesh Narula; Grazia D. Santangelo
  4. The geographical processes behind innovation: A Europe-United States comparative analysis By Riccardo Crescenzi; Andrés Rodríguez-Pose; Michael Storper
  5. Open Source Software Development, Innovation, and Coordination Costs By Thierry Warin; Jean-Philippe Bonardi
  6. Competition in product design: An experiment exploring innovation behavior By Uwe Cantner; Werner Güth; Andreas Nicklisch; Torsten Weiland
  7. Governance of Innovation in the Different Countries of the World By Manuel, Eduardo
  8. What makes a gatekeeper? Insights from the Finnish nano-community By Tuomo Nikulainen
  9. Economic Geography and the Evolution of Networks By Johannes Gluckler
  10. Knowledge and its Economic Characteristics - A Conceptual Clarification By Ulrich Witt; Tom Brökel; Thomas Brenner
  11. A theoretical framework for Evolutionary Economic Geography: Industrial dynamics and urban growth as a branching process By Koen Frenken; Ron A. Boschma
  12. Private-collective Software Business Models: Cordinatitons and Commercialization via Licensing By Heli Koski
  13. The rigour of EPO's patentability criteria: An insight into the "induced withdrawals". By George Lazaridis; Bruno Van Pottelsberghe
  14. Intellectual Property Rights: Talking Points for RP-US FTA Negotiations By Tantuico, Delia S.; Zshornack, Errol Wilfred
  15. Americans Do I.T. Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle By Nick Bloom; Raffaella Sadun; John Van Reenen
  16. Networks, Standards and Intellectual Property Rights By Vitor Trindade; Johannes Moenius

  1. By: Manuel, Eduardo
    Abstract: This work has as objective to approach the theme “National Innovation Systems in Angola and Mozambique”. We concluded that Angola and Mozambique need to define economics policy that have as objective to promote the growth of their GDP per capita and human development. Both government need to define strategies for promotion the internet access for enlarging of knowledge about others cultures that can help on promotion of innovation, and these government should to promote the enlarging of investigators in R&D for also promotion of innovation on divers areas such health, education, etc. And both government should not forget to promote the increase of rate of adult alphabetization that pass for promotion to access of education for people more necessitated and should not forget to promote of protection of intellectual property, and so, firms and companies can employ skilled people and through use of technology advanced can promote innovation and commercialize that, and this skilled people can too discovery and develop better technology and improve innovation system for development of the both countries on globalization era.
    Keywords: Innovation; National Innovation System
    JEL: O34 M19 O57 O32 O33 O14 O31
    Date: 2006–05–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3030&r=ino
  2. By: Lööf, Hans (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology)
    Abstract: In this paper, we examine the relationship between R&D collaboration, corporate ownership, market orientation and innovation. In doing so, we classify a Swedish sample of 1,249 multinational enterprises, MNEs, on the basis of their main market, corporate ownership structure and whether their collaborators are foreign-owned or not. We then apply a knowledge production model and estimate the contribution to innovation output from regional and foreign collaboration on innovation with other firms within the group, universities, suppliers and customers, competitors and consultants, controlling for internal R&D investment, human capital, physical capital, trade, financial resources and industry classification. Empirical evidence based on cross-sectional data sheds new light on how innovation is affected by local and global technology spillover.
    Keywords: Multinational enterprises; R&D; R&D collaboration; spillovers; export; import; corporate ownership structure; community innovation survey; innovation output; micro econometrics
    JEL: D21 F23 L21 L22 O31 O32
    Date: 2007–05–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0090&r=ino
  3. By: Rajneesh Narula; Grazia D. Santangelo
    Abstract: This paper shows empirically that in an intra-industry oligopolistic scenario the location of a firm’s innovative activities plays an important role in determining its partner selection in R&D alliances. Such a role is mainly attributed to a strategic use of R&D alliances as a means to limit knowledge flows and protect competences, rather than to promote knowledge flows. By drawing on a novel dataset matching alliances and patent data for the European ICT industry, the econometric analysis shows that partners’ prior co-location (at both national and sub-national regional level), previous ties and technological overlap matter in the choice of partner, while common nationality has a negative impact on alliance formation.
    Keywords: Alliances; strategy; efficiency; R&D location
    JEL: D23 F23 O18 O32 R3
    Date: 2007
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:07-05&r=ino
  4. By: Riccardo Crescenzi (Università degli studi Roma Tre); Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (London School of Economics); Michael Storper (London School of Economics)
    Abstract: The United States and European Union differ significantly in terms of their innovative capacity: the former have been able to gain and maintain world leadership in innovation and technology while the latter continues to lag. Notwithstanding the magnitude of this innovation gap and the political emphasis placed upon it on both sides of the Atlantic, very little systematic comparative analysis has been carried out on its causes. The empirical literature has emphasised the structural differences between the two continents in the quantity and quality of the major \'inputs\' to innovation: R&D investments and human capital. The very different spatial organisation of innovative activities in the EU and the US – as suggested by a variety of contributions in the field of economic geography – could also influence innovative output. This paper analyses and compares a wide set of territorial processes that influence innovation in Europe and the United States. The higher mobility of capital, population, and knowledge in the US not only promotes the agglomeration of research activity in specific areas of the country but also enables a variety of territorial mechanisms to fully exploit local innovative activities and (informational) synergies. In the European Union, in contrast, imperfect market integration, and institutional and cultural barriers across the continent prevent innovative agents from maximising the benefits from external economies and localised interactions, but compensatory forms of geographical process may be emerging in concert with further European integration.
    Date: 2007–04–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2007-13&r=ino
  5. By: Thierry Warin; Jean-Philippe Bonardi
    Abstract: Open source is often presented as a very promising governance structure for the development of software in the Internet world. One of its greatest advantages is that it enables and integrates the flow of innovation coming from many unrelated developers. We extend previous inquiries by showing that, due to information communication problems, this governance structure is in fact more efficient for the development of incremental innovations rather than radical innovations. Implications are drawn in terms of the future of the open source system, the economics of innovation and public policy.
    Date: 2007–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0701&r=ino
  6. By: Uwe Cantner (University of Jena, School of Busniess and Economics); Werner Güth (Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, Strategic Interaction Unit); Andreas Nicklisch (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany); Torsten Weiland (Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, Strategic Interaction Unit)
    Abstract: We experimentally investigate competition in innovation in a patent race scenario. Pairs of subjects compete as seller firms on a duopoly market, engaging in risky search investments. Successful innovation is rewarded through temporary monopoly rents. Throughout the interaction, subjects receive feedback on own and other’s search success and profit margin. Partitioning subjects into subgroups of investor types reveals that the majority of subjects condition investments on the degree of competition as measured by sales shares, while for others no correlation is ascertained. Heterogeneity in individual risk attitudes and differing experiences with related search tasks may explain this finding.
    Keywords: innovation, competition, imitation, patent race
    JEL: D81 L11 O31
    Date: 2007–05–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-014&r=ino
  7. By: Manuel, Eduardo
    Abstract: This paper has as objective to approach the "Governance of Innovation in the different countries of the World", using information from World Economic Forum. The improve of cooperation between richest and poorest countries and between the poorest countries (between South Africa and Zambia, for example) is necessary to extract lessons and so to solve problems at level of what is necessary, what is missing and what is falling at the progress of nations more poor in knowledge that is cause of low level of innovation and economic development.
    Keywords: Governance; Innovation; Governance of Innovation
    JEL: O38 O57 O39 M29 O31
    Date: 2006–10–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2275&r=ino
  8. By: Tuomo Nikulainen
    Abstract: In the process of transferring scientific knowledge to industry the role of individual academics has received less attention than the other actors in this process. This paper aims to identify the characteristics of these key individuals, or gatekeepers, by analysing them within the context of technology transfer in a science and technology community. The estimation results show that individuals who are able to provide firms with relevant research information and results are connected to the firms informally and formally. They have commercial motivations in their research and are more likely to act as gatekeepers in social networks. On the other hand, some of the a priori assumptions of these characteristics fail to have significant influence.
    Keywords: Technology trensfer; nanotechnoligy; social networks; gatekeepers
    JEL: O31 O33 O34
    Date: 2007
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:07-03&r=ino
  9. By: Johannes Gluckler
    Abstract: An evolutionary perspective on economic geography requires a dynamic understanding of change in networks. This paper explores theories of network evolution for their use in geography and develops the conceptual framework of geographical network trajectories. It specifically assesses how tie selection constitutes the evolutionary process of retention and variation in network structure and how geography affects these mechanisms. Finally, a typology of regional network formations is used to discuss opportunities for innovation in and across regions.
    Keywords: evolution, network trajectory, evolutionary economic geography, social network analysis, innovation
    Date: 2007–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0704&r=ino
  10. By: Ulrich Witt (Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, Evolutionary Economics Unit); Tom Brökel (Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, Evolutionary Economics Unit); Thomas Brenner (Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, Evolutionary Economics Unit)
    Abstract: This paper discusses several features of knowledge that are often considered crucial for characterizing the economic significance of knowledge: whether it is overtly accessible or tacit, whether it can be or is encoded or not, and whether it has public or private good character. It is argued that all these features depend similarly on the state of the knowledge technology, i.e. on how knowledge can be acquired, stored, used, and communicated. The different characteristics and the relationships between them are shown to correspond to different specifications of the technology, specifications that are not always made explicit in the literature.
    Keywords: knowledge, knowledge technology, tacitness, ouvertness, public goods, intellectual property rights
    JEL: O31 O34
    Date: 2007–05–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-013&r=ino
  11. By: Koen Frenken; Ron A. Boschma
    Abstract: We propose a framework that specifies the process of economic development as an evolutionary branching process of product innovations. Each product innovation provides a growth opportunity for an existing firm or a new firm, and for an existing city or a new city. One can then obtain both firm size and city size distributions as two aggregates resulting from a single evolutionary process. Gains from variety at the firm level (economies of scope) and the urban level (Jacobs externalities) provide the central feedback mechanism in economic development generating strong path dependencies in the spatial concentration of industries and the specialisation of cities. Gains from size are also expected, yet these are ultimately bounded by increasing wages. The contribution of our framework lies in providing a micro-foundation of economic geography in terms of the interplay between industrial dynamics and urban growth. The framework is sufficiently general to investigate systematically a number of stylised facts in economic geography, while at the same time it is sufficiently flexible to be extended such as to become applicable in more specific micro-contexts. A number of extensions related to the concepts of knowledge spillover and lock-in, are also discussed.
    Keywords: evolutionary economic geography, urban growth, firm growth, Zipf, branching, innovation
    JEL: B25 B52 L11 L25 R0 R1 R12
    Date: 2007–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0701&r=ino
  12. By: Heli Koski
    Abstract: The private-collective business models that involve both private investment incentives and the production of public goods are not well understood. This empirically oriented research uses the unique data from the software industries of five European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain) to illuminate the patterns of private, entrepreneurial provision of software placed in the public domain. The estimation results strongly suggest that the highly restrictive GPL (General Public License) works as an efficient coordination mechanism for the (leading) developers of the OSS community and spreads particularly via the firms that have participated in the OSS development projects. The software companies supplying the OSS, instead, tend not to aim at using the GPL to coordinate the further development of their own OSS. The firms are rather the origin of more flexibly licensed OSS products though gener-ally the software firms’ OSS business strategies relate to the restrictive licensing strategy choices
    Keywords: Open Source software, licensing, business strategies
    JEL: D21 D23 L23 L86
    Date: 2007–05–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:dpaper:1091&r=ino
  13. By: George Lazaridis (European Patent Office - EPO, München.); Bruno Van Pottelsberghe (Centre Emile Bernheim, Solvay Business School, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels)
    Abstract: The EPO traditionally grants at least 60% of all patent applications, the rest being either withdrawn (30-35 %) or refused (5%). This paper provides quantitative evidence suggesting that up to 54% of all patent withdrawals could be considered as induced by the work of EPO examiners, and hence may be taken as a more appropriate indicator of the rigour of the EPO. “Induced withdrawals” and refusals occur for up to 23% of all applications at the EPO. This share varies according to 1) the route chosen for an EPO filing; 2) the technological field that is considered; and 3) the country of residence of the assignee. The number of claims only slightly affects the share of withdrawals. However, on average, two additional claims induce an additional communication from the EPO, which in turn prolongs the procedural duration by an additional year.
    Keywords: European Patent Office, grant, patent filing, induced withdrawals, claims, communications, examination procedure.
    JEL: K1 K3 L1 O3
    Date: 2007–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:07-007&r=ino
  14. By: Tantuico, Delia S.; Zshornack, Errol Wilfred
    Abstract: Intellectual property rights-–copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and related rights-–have become increasingly important with the advent of increased international trade, global and knowledge-based economy and fast developing technology. A strong intellectual property rights regime is necessary in order to attract foreign trade and direct investments. For this reason, the protection of intellectual property rights has become an important negotiating item in all FTAs which the United States has entered into. In view of the proposed RP-US FTA negotiations, this paper seeks to determine whether the existing intellectual property regime in the Philippines provides adequate and sufficient legal protection of intellectual property rights. It also seeks to determine whether the administrative and judicial processes are adequate and speedy and acceptable in the enforcement and protection of said rights in the light of FTAs already entered into by the United States with other countries, in general, and with Singapore, in particular, which will be the benchmark for the RP-US FTA. Other relevant issues in the protection of intellectual property rights such as the annual review of ountries by the United States Trade Representative in relation to Special 301 of the U.S. Trade Law; piracy of optical media, including books and pharmaceuticals; and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) are also discussed. The author proposes certain provisions to be added to the Intellectual Property Code; sustained, consistent and stricter implementation of intellectual property laws including more efforts at curbing piracy; and more importantly, a strong political will and a strong determination to strengthen intellectual property rights, as necessary to make the IPR regime up to par with U.S. and international.
    Keywords: World Trade Organization, investment, intellectual property rights, market access, free trade agreement (FTA), trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), dispute settlement, Optical Media Act, E-commerce Law, legal protection, capability building
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2006-12&r=ino
  15. By: Nick Bloom; Raffaella Sadun; John Van Reenen
    Abstract: The US has experienced a sustained increase in productivity growth since the mid-1990s, particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). This has not occurred in Europe. If the US "productivity miracle" is due to a natural advantage of being located in the US then we would not expect to see any evidence of it for US establishments located abroad. This paper shows in fact that US multinationals operating in the UK do have higher productivity than non-US multinationals in the UK, and this is primarily due to the higher productivity of their IT. Furthermore, establishments that are taken over by US multinationals increase the productivity of their IT, whereas observationally identical establishments taken over by non-US multinationals do not. One explanation for these patterns is that US firms are organized in a way that allows them to use new technologies more efficiently. A model of endogenously chosen organizational form and IT is developed to explain these new micro and macro findings.
    JEL: E22 O3 O47 O52
    Date: 2007–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13085&r=ino
  16. By: Vitor Trindade (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia); Johannes Moenius
    Abstract: This paper reviews issues that lie at the intersection between intellectual property rights (IPR) and network effects, especially in the context of the global economy. Some of the relevant questions are: (1) How do IPR influence the provision of goods exhibiting network effects? (2) How do network effects in turn influence the creation of intellectual property? And (3) how do aspects of the global economy interact with both IPR and network effects? We synthesize what is known from the existing literature to answer these questions.
    Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights, Network Effects, Globalization, Standards, Social Networks, Software Piracy
    JEL: D85 F12 F13 F14 L14 O34
    Date: 2007–03–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:0705&r=ino

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