nep-ino New Economics Papers
on Innovation
Issue of 2012‒01‒10
ten papers chosen by
Steffen Lippert
University of Otago, Dunedin

  1. Results of the 2009 Survey of Innovation Activities (SIA) By Aldaba, Rafaelita M.; Albert, Jose Ramon G.; Quimba, Francis Mark A.; Yasay, Donald
  2. The Interdependence of R&D Activity and Debt Financing of Young Firms By Fryges, Helmut; Kohn, Karsten; Ullrich, Katrin
  3. Universities as Research Partners in Publicly Supported Entrepreneurial Firms By Audretsch, David B.; Leyden, Dennis P.; Link, Albert N.
  4. Innovation in the Automotive Sector of the Philippines By Quimba, Francis Mark A.; Rosellon, Maureen Ane D.
  5. A Contingency Perspective on Centralization of Supply Chain Decision-making and its Role in the Transformation of Process R&D into Financial Performance By Krotov, Konstantin V.; Germain, Richard N.
  6. Exporting, R&D Investment and Firm Survival By Ratbek Dzhumashev; Vinod Mishra; Russell Smyth
  7. Defence firms facing liberalization: innovation and export in an agent-based model of the defence industry By Blom, Martin; Castellacci, Fulvio; Fevolden, Arne
  8. INNOVATION-ORIENTED LAND-USE POLICY AT THE SUB-NATIONAL LEVEL: CASE STUDY GERMANY By Peter Friedrich; Chang Woon Nam
  9. Selection effects with heterogeneous firms By Monika Mrazova; J. Peter Neary
  10. Innovative and absorptive capacity of international knowledge : an empirical analysis of productivity sources in Latin American countries By Castillo, Leopoldo Laborda; Salem, Daniel Sotelsek; Guasch, Jose Luis

  1. By: Aldaba, Rafaelita M.; Albert, Jose Ramon G.; Quimba, Francis Mark A.; Yasay, Donald
    Abstract: In this paper, results of the 2009 Survey of Innovation Activities are described and discussed. The term innovation, traditionally associated with research and development, has evolved to mean the implementation of new or significantly improved goods and services, production process, marketing, or organizational methods in a firm. Innovation data gathered in the survey help better understand innovation and its relation to economic growth, and provide indicators for benchmarking national performance. Results of the survey suggest that more than half of sampled firms are innovators, with larger firms innovating more than smaller ones. Firms vary in innovation activity by study areas. Effects of innovation are largely customer-driven. Firms suggest cost factors to be the most important barrier to innovation. Government support is found to be limited, particularly for product innovations, to medium-sized firms. Knowledge and cooperation networks for innovation are rather weak. Firms do not access technical assistance from the government and research institutions. Cooperation is also low between the establishments and academe. Firms tend to cooperate more with establishments within their enterprise, their customers and suppliers. The results point to the need to articulate the innovation strategy to firms, and to improve information dissemination on programs available to assist firms. Networking, linkages, and collaboration among the government, industry associations, and universities and research institutions must be also be further enhanced.
    Keywords: innovation, Philippines, process innovation, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), documentary stamp tax, stock market transactions, tax elasticity, product innovation, organizational innovation, marketing innovation
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2011-15&r=ino
  2. By: Fryges, Helmut (ZEW Mannheim); Kohn, Karsten (KfW Bankengruppe); Ullrich, Katrin (KfW Bankengruppe)
    Abstract: We investigate the interdependence of debt financing and R&D activities of young firms. Using micro-level data of the KfW/ZEW Start-up Panel, our estimation results show that firm characteristics are more important than personal characteristics of the founders for explaining young firms' leverage, whereas firm characteristics and human capital of both founders and employees heavily influence R&D intensity. Applying a bivariate Tobit model, we find that there is a positive interdependent relationship between the share of loan financing and R&D intensity. A higher share of loan financing allows for more R&D in young firms and, at the same time, a higher R&D intensity allows for a higher loan share. This relationship cannot be detected by merely estimating single-equation models for R&D intensity and debt financing.
    Keywords: innovation financing, capital structure, business start-ups, KfW/ZEW Start-up Panel, Germany
    JEL: G32 O32 L26
    Date: 2011–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6217&r=ino
  3. By: Audretsch, David B. (Indiana University); Leyden, Dennis P. (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); Link, Albert N. (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics)
    Abstract: Partnerships between universities and industrial firms can play a key role in enhancing competitiveness because they provide a conduit for the spillover of knowledge from the academic organization where knowledge is created to the firm where it is transformed into innovative activity. We set forth in this paper a model of industry/university participation, and we test the model empirically using research project data on entrepreneurial firms that were funded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. We find that larger firms are more likely to be involved in a research partnership with a university, in general, as are firms with founders who have an academic background. We find the latter result holds across disaggregated types of university partnerships, as well. We find no empirical evidence that the size of the SBIR award influences the likelihood of a research partnership.
    Keywords: Research partnership; Innovative behavior; Entrepreneurship; Industry/university relationship
    JEL: L24 L26 O31 O32 O34
    Date: 2012–01–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2012_002&r=ino
  4. By: Quimba, Francis Mark A.; Rosellon, Maureen Ane D.
    Abstract: The performance of the Philippine automotive industry has steadily improved after the Asian crisis. However, relative to the performance of the automotive industry in other countries, the automotive sector in the country has languished. To understand the challenges being faced by the automotive assemblers, as well as parts and components manufacturers, the innovation capability and activities of selected establishments are analyzed following the framework developed by Bessant. This paper finds that despite having an awareness of the importance of technology and upgrading, some of the automotive firms are not able to translate this awareness into other technology activities.
    Keywords: Philippines, automotive industry, reserve currency, innovation activities
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2011-17&r=ino
  5. By: Krotov, Konstantin V.; Germain, Richard N.
    Abstract: The research examines whether centralized supply chain decisionmaking within the firm plays a role in how the firm transforms investments in process research and development (R&D) into financial performance. This transformation includes the process investment - financial performance chain, which consists of process R&D funds, applied supply chain knowledge, supply chain process variance, and financial performance. In addition, the model includes production technology routineness, size, and integration. The results, based on a sample of 204 manufacturers operating in the United States, suggest that centralization cleaves the process investment - financial performance chain at the connection of supply chain process variance and financial performance. The net effect is that firm scale, production technology routineness, integration, and process R&D investment predict financial performance only when supply chain decision-making is decentralized within the firm. Firm scale, production continuity, integration, and process R&D investment confer no performance advantage in centralized firms.
    Keywords: centralization of supply chain, contingency perspective,
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sps:wpaper:320&r=ino
  6. By: Ratbek Dzhumashev; Vinod Mishra; Russell Smyth
    Abstract: This paper examines the effect of exporting on firm survival for a panel of Indian IT firms. We show that exporting has competing effects on firm survival. On the one hand, exporting and investing in productivity are complementary activities, while on the other exporting activity is an additional source of uncertainty for the firm. We show that both effects influence survival, but operate at different points in time. Specifically, the hazard facing exporters is higher than non-exporters in the initial phase following entry into the export market, reflecting the fact that exporters are particularly vulnerable to shocks in the start-up phase. However, over time, exporters benefit more from productivity gains than non-exporters and the hazard facing exporters falls below that confronting non-exporters.
    Keywords: India, Firm survival, Information Technology, R&D, Exports
    JEL: L25 L86 C41
    Date: 2011–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2011-39&r=ino
  7. By: Blom, Martin; Castellacci, Fulvio; Fevolden, Arne
    Abstract: The paper presents an agent-based simulation model of the defence industry. The model resembles some of the key characteristics of the European defence sector, and studies how firms in this market will respond to the challenges and opportunities provided by a higher degree of openness and liberalization in the future. The simulation analysis points out that European defence firms will progressively become more efficient, less dependent on public procurement and innovation policy support, and more prone to knowledge sharing and inter-firm collaborations. This firm-level dynamics will in the long-run lead to an increase in the industry’s export propensity and a less concentrated market.
    Keywords: Defence industry; liberalization; EU; export; innovation; agent-based simulation model
    JEL: C6 F5 M2 F1 O3 L1
    Date: 2012–01–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35702&r=ino
  8. By: Peter Friedrich; Chang Woon Nam
    Abstract: This study investigates major features of land-use strategies that German municipalities have adopted to attract innovative firms (IFs). In this context a two-stage competition model is introduced: firstly a municipality should solve economic and interest conflicts related to its preference for high-quality sites for IFs against the land needs of simple manufacturers. The second part of the model describes location competition among municipalities with high-quality sites for the location of IFs. German municipal land-use policy is well combined with industrial policy; this paper reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the urban real estate market in Potsdam, and its future opportunities and risks as the location of different economic activities are determined in the planning process. Science Park Adlershof (Berlin) is an output of the spatial-oriented technology policy, which creates incubators for innovative SMEs. Municipalities also cooperate, since it provides larger sites, generates economies of scale and contributes to a smooth suburbanisation process (see Leipzig).
    Keywords: Land-use Policy, Municipal Regional Competition, Two-stage Competition Model, Zoning, Technology Park
    JEL: H42 H54 L3 O18 O3 R14 R52 R58
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:84&r=ino
  9. By: Monika Mrazova; J. Peter Neary
    Abstract: We provide a general characterization of which firms will select alternative ways of serving a market. If and only if firms’ maximum profits are supermodular in production and market-access costs, more efficient firms will select into the activity with lower market-access costs. Our result applies in a range of models and under a variety of assumptions about market structure. We show that supermodularity holds in many cases but not in all. Exceptions include FDI (both horizontal and vertical) when demands are “sub-convex” (i.e., less convex than CES), fixed costs that vary with access mode, and R&D with threshold effects.
    Keywords: Foreign direct investment (FDI), Heterogeneous firms, Proximity-concentration trade-off, R&D with threshold effects, Super- and Sub-convexity, Supermodularity
    JEL: F23 F15 F12
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:588&r=ino
  10. By: Castillo, Leopoldo Laborda; Salem, Daniel Sotelsek; Guasch, Jose Luis
    Abstract: This paper examines two sources of global knowledge spillovers: foreign direct investments and trade. Empirical evidence demonstrates that foreign direct investment and trade can contribute to overall domestic productivity growth only when the technology gap between domestic and foreign firms is not too large and when a sufficient absorptive capacity is available in domestic firms. The paper proposes the terms research and development and labor quality to capture the innovative and absorptive capacity of the country. The spillover effects in productivity are analyzed using a stochastic frontier approach. This productivity (in terms of total factor productivity) is decomposed using a generalized Malmquist output oriented index, in order to evaluate the specific effect in technical change, technical efficiency change, and scale efficiency change. Using country-level data for 16 Latin American countries for 1996-2006, the empirical analysis shows positive productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment and trade only when the country has absorptive capacity in terms of research and development. Foreign direct investment and trade spillovers are found to be positive and significant for scale efficiency change and total productivity factor change.
    Keywords: Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,E-Business,Foreign Direct Investment,Emerging Markets
    Date: 2012–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5931&r=ino

This nep-ino issue is ©2012 by Steffen Lippert. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.