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on Innovation |
| By: | Roberta Piergiovanni (Istat-Ufficio Regionale per l’Emilia-Romagna); Enrico Santarelli (JRC-IPTS) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on the mechanisms influencing the patent output of a sample of biotechnology firms from the input of indirect knowledge acquired from capital expenditures and direct knowledge from in-house R&D. Statistical models of counts are used to analyse the relationship between patent applications and R&D investment and capital expenditures. It focuses on biotechnology in the period 2002-2007 and is based on a unique data set drawn from various sources including the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, the European Patent Office (EPO), the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO/PCT). The statistical models employed in the paper are Poisson distribution generalisations with the actual distribution of patent counts fitting the negative binomial distribution and gamma distribution very well. Findings support the idea that capital expenditures – taken as equivalent to technological change embodied in new machinery and capital equipment - may also play a crucial role in the development of new patentable items from scientific companies. For EPO patents, this role appears even more important than that played by R&D investment. The overall picture emerging from our analysis of the determinants of patenting in biotechnology is that the innovation process involves a well balanced combination of inputs from both R&D and new machinery and capital equipment. |
| Keywords: | Patents, R&D, Capital expenditure, Poisson models, Biotechnology |
| JEL: | L25 L65 O34 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201006&r=ino |
| By: | Spyros Arvanitis; Heinz Hollenstein (WIFO) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the differences between specific motives of R&D investment in foreign locations with respect to the factors influencing the likelihood of foreign R&D and to the impact of foreign presence on the parent firms' innovativeness and productivity. An econometric analysis of Swiss firm panel data shows, firstly, that factors related to firm-specific knowledge-oriented advantages are more important for explaining the likelihood of foreign R&D activities than factors reflecting disadvantages related to home location. Secondly, knowledge-oriented motives of foreign R&D are positively correlated to innovation performance of domestic firms, whereas market-oriented and resource-oriented strategies correlate positively with productivity. |
| Date: | 2010–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2010:i:375&r=ino |
| By: | Askenazy, P.; Breda, T.; Irac, D. |
| Abstract: | Advertising and innovation are two engines for firms to escape competition through a better attraction power toward consumers or quality advantage. We propose a model that encompasses both the static and dynamic interactions between R&D, advertising and competitive environment. This model provides two main predictions. First, for a given competitive environment, quality leaders spend more in advertising in order to extract maximal rents; thus, lower costs of ads may favor R&D. Second, more competition pushes Neck and Neck firms to advertise more to attract a larger share of consumers on their products or services. Empirical evidence from a large panel of 59,000 French firms over 1990-2004 supports these two properties. |
| Keywords: | Advertising, Innovation, Competition, Lerner. |
| JEL: | D4 O31 D12 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:284&r=ino |
| By: | Brouwer, E.; Wiel, H.P. van der (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between competition, innovation and productivity for the Netherlands. We use industry level data aggregated from micro data as well as moments from firm level data for the period 1996-2006. We match innovation data from Community Innovation Survey with accounting data to link innovative activities with performance at the industry level. We find strong evidence for a positive impact of competition on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the industry level. Competition directly increases TFP by reducing X-ineficiencies and removing inefficient forms from markets, but also through more innovation. Nonetheless, there exists an inverted U- curve between competition and innovation for the Netherlands, at least for manufacturing industries. Yet, our results indicate that a negative effect of competition on productivity through lower innovation expenditures arises only at very high levels of competition. |
| Keywords: | competition;innovation;profit elasticity;productivity |
| JEL: | D40 L16 O31 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:201052&r=ino |
| By: | Halkos, George |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the innovative performance of Greek firms in terms of the women participation in research and technological development. For this reason we rely on the final results of a research project on women in innovation, technology and science, based on 279 questionnaires selected on a two years time period (2004-2006). Concerning the female participation in innovations a number of variables are used, like the total number of women employees by age, by education level, by firm size and by sector, as well as women in product and in process innovations, their position in the firm (owner, manager) and finally equality in job enrichment, in salary, in education–training and in promotion. Apart of presenting the empirical results relying on the analysis of the data collected by the survey to the Greek enterprises, we use the collecting variables in an econometric formulation using logistic regression and extracting the associated probabilities for implementing innovations. For this reason, first the General Linear Model (GLIM) is introduced and statistical inference and estimation problems are discussed. Then the Logit Model is presented under the theoretical framework of the Generalized Linear Models (GLIM), while some theoretical inside is extended with a number of suggested propositions and theorems. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Competitiveness; Diversity |
| JEL: | C10 Q55 L26 O31 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:24392&r=ino |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Luis F. Medrano (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the spatial diffusion of knowledge in laser technology in West Germany from 1960, when this technology began, until 2005. Laser technology research has been nearly exclusively conducted in regions that are home to a university with a physics or electrical engineering department, an indication of the science-based character of the technology. Early adoption of laser knowledge was especially prevalent in large agglomerations. While we cannot detect knowledge spillovers from adjacent regions, geographic proximity to the center of initial laser research was conducive to early adoption of laser research; however, the effect is small. The earlier a region embarked on this type of research, the higher the level of laser research later, indicating the accumulation of knowledge generated in previous periods. Our results highlight the role of a region's absorptive capacity for commencing and conducting research in a new technological field. In the case of laser technology, it was more the level of existing tacit knowledge than an interregional transfer of tacit knowledge that played an important role. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, regional innovation systems, knowledge, spatial diffusion, laser technology |
| JEL: | R11 O33 O52 |
| Date: | 2010–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-048&r=ino |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Sebastian von Engelhardt (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the characteristics of new businesses in the German ICT industry, distinguishing them based on their choice between two IPR regimes: open source software (OSS) or closed source software (CSS). The share of new firms with an OSS-based business model has increased considerably over the last several years. OSS-based firms tend to be smaller (in terms of staff and capital) and experience less shortages of capital. Only older cohorts of OSS-intensive start-ups had more difficulty than their CSS counterparts in convincing potential financiers of their viability, indicating that OSS business models are now well established. We find no evidence that the lower entry barriers for OSS firms are particularly attractive to start-ups with low human capital endowment or to necessity-motivated entrepreneurs. |
| Keywords: | New business formation, institutions, open source, intellectual property rights, software industry |
| JEL: | D02 L17 L26 L86 |
| Date: | 2010–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-049&r=ino |
| By: | Golombek, Rolf (The Frisch Center for Economic Research); Greaker, Mads (Statistics Norway); Hoel, Michael (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Climate mitigation policy should be imposed over a long period, and spur development of new technologies in order to make stabilization of green house gas concentrations economically feasible. The government may announce current and future policy packages that stimulate current R&D in climate-friendly technologies. However, once climate-friendly technologies have been developed, the government may have no incentive to implement the pre-announced future policies, that is, there may be a time inconsistency problem. We show that if the government can optimally subsidize R&D today, there is no time inconsistency problem. Thus, lack of commitment is not an argument for higher current R&D subsidies. If the o¤ered R&D subsidy is lower than the optimal subsidy, the current (sub-game perfect) climate tax should exceed the …rst-best climate tax. |
| Keywords: | Time consistency; carbon tax; climate policy; R&D; endogenous technological change |
| JEL: | H21 O30 Q28 Q42 |
| Date: | 2010–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:osloec:2010_002&r=ino |
| By: | Christopher C. Liu (Rotman School of Management, Toronto, Canada); Toby E. Stuart (Harvard Business School, Entrepreneurial Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | In innovative industries, private-sector companies increasingly are participants in open communities of science and technology. To participate in the system of exchange in such communities, firms often publicly disclose what would otherwise remain private discoveries. In a quantitative case study of one firm in the biopharmaceutical sector, we explore the consequences of scientific publication-an instance of public disclosure-for a core set of activities within the firm. Specifically, we link publications to human capital management practices, showing that scientists' bonuses and the allocation of managerial attention are tied to individuals' publications. Using a unique electronic mail dataset, we find that researchers within the firm who author publications are much better connected to external (to the company) members of the scientific community. This result directly links publishing to current understandings of absorptive capacity. In an unanticipated finding, however, our analysis raises the possibility that the company's most prolific publishers begin to migrate to the periphery of the intra-firm social network, which may occur because these individuals' strong external relationships induce them to reorient their focus to a community of scientists beyond the firm's boundary. |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:11-012&r=ino |
| By: | Ramana Nanda (Harvard Business School, Entrepreneurial Management Unit); Matthew Rhodes-Kropf (Harvard Business School, Entrepreneurial Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | Investors in risky startups who stage their investments face financing risk -that is, the risk that later stage investors will not fund the startup, even if the fundamentals of the firm are still sound. We show that financing risk is part of a rational equilibrium where investors can flip from investing to not investing in certain sectors of the economy. We further demonstrate that financing risk has the greatest impact on firms with the most real option value. Hence, the mix of projects funded and type of investors who are active varies with the level of financing risk in the economy. We also highlight that some extremely novel technologies may in fact need `hot' financial markets to get through the initial period of diffusion. Our work underscores that financial markets may play a much larger and under-studied role in creating and magnifying bubbles of innovation in the real economy. |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:11-013&r=ino |