|
on Innovation |
| By: | Christine Greenhalgh (Oxford University); Mark Rogers (Oxford University); Philipp Schautschick (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | A common assumption in innovation policy circles is that creative and inventive firms will help to sustain employment and wages in high wage countries. The view is that firms in high cost production locations that do not innovate are faced with loss of market share from import competition, so jobs move to producers in developing countries with lower labour costs. Domestic firms are encouraged to innovate, and to obtain intellectual property assets to protect their innovations, so that they can sustain local employment and pay high wages. Policies to subsidise R&D and to encourage intellectual property protection are partly justified on these grounds. Nevertheless the available evidence concerning the employment and wage benefits of such activity is rather sparse. In this paper we first survey some existing literature on innovation and jobs. We outline arguments for using both patents and trade marks as indicators of innovation. We then construct a large sample of UK firms observed from 2000 to 2006, matching records of patents and trade marks to company data. We begin by estimating a cross section employment growth equation for 2003-2006 to discover if there is any impact of stocks of trade marks acquired in 2000-2003. We then explore in more detail the impact of recent trade mark and patenting activity on the level of employment and the average rate of pay in these firms. We do this using the data as a six year panel, estimating both an employment function and a relative earnings equation at the firm level. Our aim throughout is to identify and calibrate the assumed positive effects that underpin modern innovation policy. |
| Keywords: | patents, trademarks, innovation, labot costs, wages, firms |
| JEL: | D21 E22 H32 K13 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:indrel:1319&r=ino |
| By: | Rune Dahl Fitjar (IRIS - International Research Institute of Stavanger); Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (IMDEA Social Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the sources of firm product and process innovation in Norway. It uses a purpose-built survey of 1604 firms in the five largest Norwegian city-regions to test, by means of a logit regression analysis, Jensen et al.'s (2007) contention that firm innovation is both the result of 'science, technology and innovation' (STI) and 'doing, using and interacting' (DUI) modes of firm learning. The paper classifies different types of firm interaction into STI-mode interaction (with consultants, universities, and research centres) and DUI-mode interaction, distinguishing between DUI interaction within the supply-chain (i.e. with suppliers and customers) or not (with competitors). It further controls for the geographical locations of partners. The analysis demonstrates that engagement with external agents is an important source of firm innovation and that both STI and DUI-modes of interaction matter. However, it also shows that DUI modes of interaction outside the supply chain tend to be irrelevant for innovation, with frequent exchanges with competitors having a detrimental effect on a firm's propensity to innovate. Collaboration with extra-regional agents is much more conducive to innovation than collaboration with local partners, especially within the DUI mode.This paper examines the sources of firm product and process innovation in Norway. It uses a purpose-built survey of 1604 firms in the five largest Norwegian city-regions to test, by means of a logit regression analysis, Jensen et al.'s (2007) contention that firm innovation is both the result of 'science, technology and innovation' (STI) and 'doing, using and interacting' (DUI) modes of firm learning. The paper classifies different types of firm interaction into STI-mode interaction (with consultants, universities, and research centres) and DUI-mode interaction, distinguishing between DUI interaction within the supply-chain (i.e. with suppliers and customers) or not (with competitors). It further controls for the geographical locations of partners. The analysis demonstrates that engagement with external agents is an important source of firm innovation and that both STI and DUI-modes of interaction matter. However, it also shows that DUI modes of interaction outside the supply chain tend to be irrelevant for innovation, with frequent exchanges with competitors having a detrimental effect on a firm's propensity to innovate. Collaboration with extra-regional agents is much more conducive to innovation than collaboration with local partners, especially within the DUI mode. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; firms; suppliers; customers; competitors; universities; STI; DUI; R&D; geography; Norway |
| Date: | 2011–07–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2011-12&r=ino |
| By: | Matteo Lucchese (Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo") |
| Abstract: | The model and the empirical test developed in this paper address the determinants of structural change for six major European economies from 1995 to 2007. The performances of sectors are explained by the unfolding of uneven technological opportunities and different conditions of demand. Building on the literature on structural change and on previous studies on the link between sectoral patterns of innovation and economic performance of sectors, a set of tests is developed on a panel of 21 manufacturing sectors and 17 services, merging three different sources of data. The results show the importance of breaking up the innovative efforts of sectors and the role of demand in shaping their trajectories of development. |
| Keywords: | Structural change, Demand, Innovation, Industry-level analysis. |
| JEL: | O10 O33 O41 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:11_09&r=ino |
| By: | Battaglia, Lauren; Larouche, Pierre; Negrinotti, Matteo |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first of a larger project aimed at exploring, among other things, whether Europe has a consistent innovation policy in the context of EU economic law (competition policy, intellectual property law, sector regulation). As such, its primary aim is to present our approach for answering this question and outline the anticipated contributions of the project. Part I of the paper sets forth the theoretical foundations of the project--namely an integrated approach to economic law that moves beyond apparent conflicts and assumes innovation as the starting point. Taking this as the foundation, the two primary components of the project are described. First, a theoretical component involving the development of an analytical grid to be used to identify ways in which economic law impacts innovation, and second an applied component that explores observable instances where choices, both implicit and explicit, are made regarding innovation in economic law. Part II of the paper builds on this and offers a preliminary illustration of the proposed analysis in the context of pharmaceuticals, specifically drug reformulation regulatory gaming. |
| Keywords: | antitrust; economic law; innovation; pharmaceuticals |
| JEL: | K21 L41 O31 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8481&r=ino |
| By: | Francesco Bogliacino (European Commission); Matteo Lucchese (Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo"); Mario Pianta (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo") |
| Abstract: | The patterns and mechanisms of job creation in business services are investigated in this article by considering the role of innovation, demand, wages and the composition of employment by professional groups. A model is developed and an empirical test is carried out with parallel analyses on a group of selected business services, on other services and on manufacturing sectors,considering six major European countries over the period 1996-2007. Within technological activities a distinction is made between those supporting either technological competitiveness, or cost competitiveness. Demand variables allow identifying the special role of intermediate demand. Job creation in business services appears to be driven by efforts to expand technological competitiveness and by the fast growing intermediate demand coming from other industries; conversely, process innovation leads to job losses and wage growth has a negative effect that is lower that in other industries. Business services show an increasingly polarised employment structure. |
| Keywords: | Business Services, Innovation, Employment. |
| JEL: | J20 J23 O30 O33 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:11_07&r=ino |
| By: | Burton, Jonathan; Laurie, Heather; Uhrig, S. C. Noah |
| Abstract: | This paper presents some preliminary findings from the Wave 2 Innovation Panel (IP2) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major new panel survey for the UK. In April 2009, the second wave of the Innovation Panel was fielded. This paper describes the design of IP2, the experiments carried and the preliminary findings from early analysis of the data. The main design features of Understanding Society are outlined and the design and conduct of IP2 described. The results of methodological experiments carried at IP2 are reported and the impact of IP2 on the design of the main survey reviewed. |
| Date: | 2010–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:ukhlsp:2010-04&r=ino |
| By: | Scherer, F. M. (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the logic of pursuing parallel R&D paths when there is uncertainty as to which approaches will succeed technically and/or economically. Previous findings by Richard Nelson and the present author are reviewed. A further analysis then seeks to determine how sensitive optimal strategies are to parameter variations and the extent to which parallel and series strategies are integrated. It pays to support more approaches, the deeper the stream of benefits is and the lower is the probability of success with a single approach. Higher profits are obtained with combinations of parallel and series strategies, but the differences are small when the number of series trial periods is extended from two to larger numbers. A "dartboard experiment" shows that when uncertainty pertains mainly to outcome values and the distribution of values is skew-distributed, the optimal number of trials is inversely related to the cost per trial. |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp11-022&r=ino |
| By: | Alberto Quadrio Curzio; Fausta Pellizzari; Roberto Zoboli |
| Abstract: | This Working Paper joint two previous articles by the authors: The economic theory of exhaustible natural resources, in “Enciclopedia degli Idrocarburi”, vol. IV, Istituto della Enciclopedia Treccani, Roma, 2008, pp. 3-10;Technological innovation, relative scarcity, investments, in “Enciclopedia degli Idrocarburi”, vol. IV, Istituto della Enciclopedia Treccani, 2008, pp. 11-22. In the first one (cap. 1-4), we consider the contribution of economic theory (partly through a reevaluation of history) in order both to interpret and predict events, and to identify economic policies; this happens especially when the world economy feels the significant constraints imposed by some natural resources and raw materials, partly due to the rapid growth of a number of developing countries, and when there is an urgent need to increase resources rapidly to ensure continuing availability. Even if the problem of scarce resources (of which natural resources are the most obvious category) has been central to analysis for centuries, natural resource economics is contradictory. The main reason for this is that economic theory is out of step with prevailing economic conditions, as a consequence of the varying concern for a crucial phenomenon in the dynamics of economic systems: the opposition-coexistence of the scarcity of natural resources and the producibility of commodities. Natural resource economics can be summarized by dividing it into three main lines of thought: the theory of producibility and scarcity developed by classical economists; the theory of general and natural scarcities developed by marginalists and neoclassicals; the theory of dynamics with and without natural scarcities developed by macroeconomists, structuralists and empirical stylizers. Using this three-way subdivision, which is not clearly codified in economic theory, the basic features of each approach will be examined with special attention to its early exponents. The historical starting point is the second half of the Eighteenth century, although we will ignore contributions such as those made by the Physiocrats who, during the same period, developed a theory of production based on the surplus generated by agriculture. In the second one (cap. 5-6), we consider that the role of technological innovation for resources use and conservation is often measured by empirical indicators of intensity or efficiency which express the evolution of resource use in relation to variables such as population and GDP. The historical evolution of these indicators tends to indicate a process of decoupling – in other words, a decrease in the energy/emissions intensity of economic activity or an increase in the efficiency/productivity of resource use. These empirical regularities have led to the proposition of stylized facts representing the relationships between resource-use efficiency and economic growth known as environmental Kuznets curves. However, the economic interpretations of the innovation mechanisms underlying the progress suggested by efficiency indicators, nonetheless, remain open and complex at the very time when there is increasing demand for further substantial advances in resource-use efficiency. We will survey the empirical evidence on the medium- and long-term dynamics of these indicators and will discuss their significance. This will be followed by an analysis of the possible role played by economic factors (especially resource prices and markets) and institutional factors (especially climate policy) in triggering and supporting progress in the use efficiency of energy resources. |
| Keywords: | natural resources; technological innovation; relative scarcity; investments |
| JEL: | N50 O30 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crn:wpaper:crn1101&r=ino |