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on Innovation |
| By: | Eric Rugraff |
| Abstract: | This article questions the nature of the foreign direct R&D investments in Central Europe. Do the affiliates of the multinationals still undertake adaptive R&D? Have they recently engaged in innovative R&D activities in their Central European affiliates? We assess the nature of the R&D activities of the multinationals in Central Europe in three steps. In a first step we use the OECD database on foreign direct R&D expenditure and personnel to compare the foreign affiliates’ R&D intensity with the indigenous firms’ R&D intensity. We find few differences between the two families of firms. In a second step we use patents granted to foreigners in Central Europe as a variable proxy to assess the evolution of innovative R&D activities in Central Europe. We find that the patenting activities of foreigners rose with the increase of their R&D investments in Central Europe. We also suggest that the Central European affiliates still have a marginal position in the patenting strategy of the multinationals. In a third step we focus on the patent data of the foreign affiliates in the Czech Republic – the Central European leader as regards of foreign direct R&D investments –, in the major foreign direct R&D sectors – electronics, electrical equipment, machinery and motor vehicles –. We build a sample made of the ten multinationals representing the most active R&D investors in the country and assess the recent evolution of their patenting activity. We suggest that, (a) even these major R&D investors still only marginally apply for patents in their Czech affiliates; (b) there is no under-evaluation of the innovation activity of the Czech affiliates due to a geographical separation of inventions – in the Czech Republic – and patent location – in Western Europe; (c) the researchers working in the Czech affiliates are still not sufficiently oriented towards innovation activities to be integrated in the patenting-oriented international teams built by the multinationals. Foreign direct R&D investments in Central Europe remain mostly production supportive and associated with the international exploitation of technology produced in the Western headquarters and affiliates. Despite the strong engagement of the Czech government towards foreign direct R&D, real innovative R&D increases very slowly. |
| Keywords: | business R&D, multinationals, Central Europe, innovative R&D, patents. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2014-22&r=ino |
| By: | Matthias Brachert; T. Brökel |
| Abstract: | Technological complementarity is argued to be a crucial element for effective Research and Development (R&D) collaboration. The real structure is, however, still largely unknown. Based on the argument that organizations’ knowledge resources must fit for enabling collective learning and innovation, we use the co-occurrence of firms in collaborative R&D projects in Germany to assess inter-sectoral technological complementarity between 129 sectors. The results are mapped as complementarity space for the Germany economy. The space and its dynamics from 1990 to 2011 are analyzed by means of social network analysis. The results illustrate sectors being complements both from a dyadic and portfolio/ network perspective. This latter is important, as complementarities may only become fully effective when integrated in a complete set of different knowledge resources from multiple sectors. The dynamic perspective moreover reveals the shifting demand for knowledge resources among sectors at different time periods. |
| Keywords: | collaborative R&D projects, resource complementarity, co-occurrence analysis |
| JEL: | L14 O31 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iwh:dispap:13-14&r=ino |
| By: | Elena M. Chernovich (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Valentina V. Polyakova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the innovation activity in an amateur community. It implements the case study method to analyze the intensive innovation creation process that was going on in the whitewater paddling community during the last two decades of the twentieth century. We apply the notion innovative agency to get a deeper understating of the process of innovation creation, and to identify all actors of innovation. Further we trace the process of innovative agency delegation between actors. We find out that two radical innovations and many incremental innovations emerged in this community. We conclude that their emergence was shaped by creative and competitive environment of the whitewater paddling community. |
| Keywords: | user innovation, amateur community, community innovation, innovative agency, whitewater paddling |
| JEL: | O31 D12 L67 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:30sti2014&r=ino |
| By: | Nicolò Barbieri (University of Bologna, Italy; Ingenio CSIC-UPV, Valencia, Spain.) |
| Abstract: | Using patent data on 355 applicants patenting to the European patent offices from 1998 to 2010 on environmental road transport technologies, we investigate under what conditions the European environmental transport policy portfolio and the intrinsic characteristics of assignees’ knowledge boost worldwide green patent production. Our findings suggest that post-tax fuel prices, environmental vehicle taxes, CO2 standards and European emission standards, introduced in the empirical model through an innovative methodology based on Self-Organising Maps (SOM) (Kohonen, 1990; 2001), positively influence the creation of environmental inventions. Most importantly, we advocate that assignees anticipate the introduction of those emission standards, filing patents before the effective implementation of regulations when legislations are announced. Furthermore, we provide evidence that in a technological space (which measures the applicants’ technological proximity), closely located organisations enhance their patent output through the exploitation of technological knowledge produced by others. This means that the greater the proximity between assignees, the higher their likelihood of taking advantage of the knowledge produced by others. Finally, we observe that dynamic changes (both in quantity and in the number of technological fields engaged) in assignees’ patent portfolios spur inventive performances. |
| Keywords: | Environmental patents, environmental policies, Self-Organising Maps, road transport technologies, European emission standards, fuel prices |
| JEL: | O31 O38 Q55 L62 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:srt:wpaper:3114&r=ino |
| By: | Grillitsch , Markus (CIRCLE, Lund University); Nilsson , Magnus (Department of Business Administration and CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | It is widely accepted that firms in peripheral regions benefit to a lesser extent from local knowledge spillovers than firms located in agglomerations or industrial clusters. This paper investigates the extent to which innovative firms in peripheral regions compensate for the lack of access to local knowledge spillovers by collaborating at other geographical scales. So far the literature predominantly suggests that collaborations complement rather than compensate for local knowledge spillovers. Using data on the collaboration patterns of innovative firms in Sweden, this paper provides evidence that firms with low access to local knowledge spillovers tend to collaborate more. This effect, however, depends on firm size and in-house capabilities. Our findings suggest that firms with strong in-house capabilities do indeed compensate for a lack of local knowledge spillovers with collaborations while firms with weaker in-house capabilities depend more on the regional knowledge infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | Local knowledge spillovers; periphery; collaboration; innovation; geography; Sweden |
| JEL: | O18 O30 O31 P48 R10 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–12–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_033&r=ino |
| By: | Lööf , Hans (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Nabavi, Pardis (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Existing studies associates financial constraints among innovators to small, young and high-tech firms. High adjustment cost implies that firms save money by smoothing innovation spending across the business cycle if they have available resources. This paper examines whether previous findings on financial constraints can be generalized to exporting firms. To do so, we investigate possible differences in the innovation-cash flow link between high-tech firms and all exporters, creation and exploitation innovation activities, persistent and non-persistent exporters. Applying a modified Euler model and dynamic two-step GMM estimator on close to 7,000 exporting firms in Sweden, the estimation shows that (i) the typical exporter is not financially constrained in any type of innovation activities, (ii) high-tech firms - but only persistent exporters - behave as if they have higher adjustment cost than other firms engaged in knowledge creating activities, and (iii) both persistent and non-persistent exporters in high-tech sector are more financially constrained than the whole group of manufacturing exporters when innovation is measured as knowledge exploitation. |
| Keywords: | innovation; exports; credit constraints; two-step GMM |
| JEL: | F14 G32 O16 O30 O32 |
| Date: | 2014–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0387&r=ino |
| By: | Manniche , Jesper (Centre for Regional and Tourism Research (CRT), Bornholm, Denmark); Moodysson , Jerker (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE), Lund University, Sweden); Testa , Stefania (Polytechnic School, University of Genova, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper has three aims. Firstly, to provide a critical review of previous conceptualizations of the knowledge base approach in the research fields of innovation studies and economic geography. Secondly, to propose a broadened interpretation of the knowledge base approach which allows for considering combinatorial knowledge bases within and across industries, regions and time periods and for analytically integrating the cognitive, organizational and spatial dimensions of innovation and learning. Thirdly, to provide methodological suggestions for how to apply such broadened interpretation of the knowledge base approach in empirical innovation studies, regardless of industrial, geographical or temporal context. The paper thereby dismisses the wide-spread taxonomical application of knowledge base conceptualizations in innovation studies and economic geography for classification of firms, industries and economies into fixed categories based on their knowledge base characteristics. Instead it proposes a typological approach and a conceptual and methodological basis for explaining the shifting dynamics of innovation processes in firms, industries and economies. In addition to highlighting limitations and strengths of the knowledge base approach, the paper thus targets investigation of unexploited potentials of knowledge base conceptualizations and provides suggestions for future research. |
| Keywords: | Biographies; economic geography; innovation; knowledge; learning |
| JEL: | L20 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2014–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_028&r=ino |
| By: | Franz Tödtling; Markus Grillitsch |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwsre:sre-disc-2014_07&r=ino |
| By: | Gaétan de Rassenfosse; Adam B. Jaffe |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates whether patent fees are an effective mechanism to deter the filing of low-quality patent applications. The study analyzes the effect of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1982, which resulted in a substantial increase in patenting fees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, on patent quality. Results from a series of difference-in-differences regressions suggest that the increase in fees led to a weeding out of low-quality patents. About 16–17 per cent of patents in the lowest quality decile were filtered out. The figure reaches 24–30 per cent for patents in the lowest quality quintile. However, the fee elasticity of quality decreased with the size of the patent portfolio held by applicants. The study is relevant to concerns about declines in patent quality and the financial vulnerability of patent offices. |
| JEL: | K2 O31 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20785&r=ino |
| By: | Minas Vlassis (Department of Economics, University of Crete, Greece); Maria Varvataki (University of Crete) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies oligopolistic markets with differentiated products, with endogenous union structures and quality improvement-R&D investments. In the context of a dynamic game-theoretic analysis we investigate the conditions under which firm-level unions may strategically collude, or not, and the impact of their decisions upon the firms� incentives to individually spend on R&D investments. We show that, under sufficiently high (low) discount rate and substitutability among the firms' products, an industry-wide union emerges (separate firm-level unions sustain) in the equilibrium, where product quality along with the level of R&D investments are relatively low (high). Moreover, we consider the instance where a benevolent policy maker undertakes the costs of firm-specific R&D investments and finances these costs by indirect taxation. We conclude that in such cases, higher surpluses emerge for the market participants in the equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Oligopoly, Unions, Collusion, R&D Investments, Repeated Games |
| JEL: | D43 J51 L13 O31 C73 |
| Date: | 2014–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:1410&r=ino |
| By: | Labeaga Azcona J.; Martínez-Ros E.; Mohnen P. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | The use of fiscal policy instruments to stimulate private RD is widespread and important in some countries like Spain. In this paper we explore the effectiveness of RD tax incentives on knowledge capital accumulation in Spanish manufacturing firms using an unbalanced panel and compare the estimates based on claimed and claimable tax reductions. We find that while large firms use the programme more than small ones, the impact of the programme measured by the price elasticity is smaller for large firms than for SMEs. The price elasticities are higher when the ex-ante claimable tax reductions rather than the ex-post actually claimed tax eductions are used to compute the user cost of RD. |
| Keywords: | Business Taxes and Subsidies including sales and value-added (VAT); Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Firm; Management of Technological Innovation and R&D; |
| JEL: | H25 H32 O32 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014081&r=ino |
| By: | Kimle, Kevin |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests four models that could link US and Chinese investment and yield productive new avenues for commercial collaboration. All four models focus on animal protein supply chain technologies. That is because agricultural innovation in this realm is of particular importance to demandside developments and to rapidly changing consumption patterns in China. These four models focus on early-stage agricultural innovation and business development. |
| Keywords: | China; innovation; agricultural technologies; Investment; Business startups |
| JEL: | M13 M16 O32 Q13 Q16 |
| Date: | 2014–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38334&r=ino |
| By: | Uwe Cantner (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Holger Graf (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Johannes Herrmann (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Martin Kalthaus (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena) |
| Abstract: | Technological change and gains in efficiency of renewable power generation technologies are to a large extent driven by governmental support. Various policies that can broadly be categorized as technology push, demand pull or systemic constitute a policy mix for renewable energies. Our goal is to gain insights on the influence of this policy mix on the intensity and organization of inventive activities within the technological innovation systems for wind power and photovoltaic in Germany since the 1980s. We examine the effect of different instruments on the size and structure of co-inventor networks based on patent data. Our results indicate notable differences between the technologies: The network size for wind power is driven by technology push and systemic instruments, while in photovoltaic demand pull is decisive for network growth. The instruments complement each other and form a consistent policy mix. The structure of the networks is driven by demand pull for both technologies. Systemic instruments increase interaction especially in the wind power network and are complementary to demand pull in fostering collaboration. |
| Keywords: | Renewable Energy, Inventor Network, Policy Mix, Systemic Instrument, Technology Push, Demand Pull |
| JEL: | Q42 Q55 L14 O38 |
| Date: | 2014–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2014-034&r=ino |
| By: | Paunov C.; Rollo V. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | Based on 50,013 firm observations covering 117 developing and emerging countries, this paper shows knowledge spillover effects from industries use of the internet boosted the average firms productivity and innovation performance. We document that industries digitization had heterogeneous impacts results from quantile regressions indicate that the most productive firms benefited much more than others. Wider Internet adoption rates were also of larger benefit to single-plant establishments, non-exporters and firms in remote locations, particularly to the most productive among these firms. Overall, we document that the internet can play an important role to support inclusive innovation, conditional on firms absorptive capacities. |
| Keywords: | Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes; |
| JEL: | O33 O14 O12 D22 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014084&r=ino |
| By: | Pelkmans, Jacques; Renda, Andrea |
| Abstract: | One frequently hears the question posed in the title to this report, but there is little systematic analytical literature on the issue. Fragmented evidence or anecdotes dominate debates among EU regulatory decision-makers and in European business, insofar as there is a genuine debate at all. This CEPS Special Report focuses on the multi-faceted, ambiguous and complex relationship between (EU) regulation and innovation in the economy, and discusses the innovation-enhancing potential of certain regulatory approaches as well as factors that tend to reduce incentives to innovate. It adopts an 'ecosystem' approach to both regulation and innovation, and study the interactions between the two ecosystems. This general analysis and survey are complemented by seven case studies of EU regulation enabling and disabling innovation, two horizontal and five sectoral ones. The case studies are preceded by a broader contextual analysis of trends in EU regulation over the last three decades. These trends show the significant transformation of the nature as well as improvement of the quality of EU regulation, largely in the deepened internal market, which tend to have a favourable and lasting effect on the rate of innovation in the EU (other things being equal). Among the findings include the following: Regulation can at times be a powerful stimulus to innovation. EU regulation matters at all stages of the innovation process. Different types of regulation can be identified in terms of innovation impact: general or horizontal, innovation-specific and sector-specific regulation. More prescriptive regulation tends to hamper innovative activity, whereas the more flexible EU regulation is, the better innovation can be stimulated. Lower compliance and red-tape burdens have a positive effect on innovation. The authors recommend incorporating a specific test on innovation impacts in the ex-ante impact assessment of EU legislation as well as in ex-post evaluation. There is ample potential for fostering innovation by reviewing the EU regulatory acquis. |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eps:cepswp:9822&r=ino |
| By: | Balland, Pierre-Alexandre (Department of Economic Geography Utrecht University and Center for Innovation and Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE), Lund University); Rigby, David (Departments of Geography and Statistics, University of California Los Angeles); Boschma, Ron (Center for Innovation and Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE), Lund University and Utrecht University, Urban and Regional research centre Utrecht (URU)) |
| Abstract: | We study the resilience of cities by analyzing their capacity to sustain the production of technology when facing adverse events. Patent applications for 366 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas, spanning the period 1975 to 2002, are used to analyze the vulnerability and response of cities to technological crises. Crises are defined as periods of sustained negative growth in patenting activity. We find that the frequency, intensity and duration of technological crises vary considerably across American cities. We examine how the technological knowledge bases of cities, their network openness and institutional environment condition resilience. Econometric analysis suggests that cities with knowledge bases that are diverse, flexible and proximate to technologies in which they do not currently possess comparative advantage tend to avoid technological crises, have limited downturns in patent production and recover faster from crisis events. |
| Keywords: | Urban resilience; technological crisis; related knowledge structure; institutions; inter-city networks |
| JEL: | D83 L65 O33 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–12–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_032&r=ino |
| By: | David P.A. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | In most modern economies scientific and technological research activities are conducted in two distinct organizational modes commercially oriented RD based upon proprietary information, and noncommercial open science. When taken together and kept in proper balance, these form a complementary pair of institutionally differentiated sub-systems. Each can work to amplify and augment the productivity of the other, thereby spurring long-term economic growth and improvements of social welfare in knowledge-driven societies. This paper considers the difference between historical origins of open science and its modern, critically important role in the allocation of research resources. The institutional structure of The Republic of Open Science generally is less well understood and has less robust self-sustaining foundations than the familiar non-cooperative market mechanisms associated with proprietary RD. Although they are better suited for the conduct of exploratory science, they also remain more vulnerable to damages from collateral effects of shifts in government policies, particularly those that impact their fiscal support and regulatory environments. After reviewing the several challenges that such policy actions during the 20th centurys closing decades had posed for continued effective collective explorations at the frontiers of scientific knowledge, the discussion examines the responses that those developments elicited from academic research communities. Those reactions to the threatened curtailment of timely access to data and technical information about new research methods and findings took the form of technical and organizational innovations designed to expand and enhance infrastructural protections for sustained open access in scientific and scholarly communications. They were practical, bottom-up initiatives to provide concrete, domain relevant tools and organizational routines whose adoption subsequently could be, and in the event were reinforced by top-down policy guidelines and regulatory steps by public funding agencies and international bodies. The non-politicized nature of that process, as well as its largely effective outcomes should be read cautiously as positive portents of the future vitality of the Republic of Open Science and of those societies that recognize, protect and adequately support this remarkable social innovation. |
| Keywords: | Property Law; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; |
| JEL: | K11 O31 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014082&r=ino |
| By: | Heckemeyer, Jost H.; Richter, Katharina; Spengel, Christoph |
| Abstract: | The allocation of management and control in the business decision process finds expression in the coordination intensity between agents in the firm. We develop and test a theory, based on the organizational design literature, for the intensity in which the tax department strives to coordinate with managers from other business units in order to intervene in investment decisions. Our theoretical considerations predict that R&D intensity is an important determinant of the tax department's role. Using data from a confidential survey taken in 2012 of top financial and tax managers of very large multinational companies, representing 8% of business R&D spending in the OECD, we indeed find supporting evidence that in R&D intensive multinational firms the tax department operates more as a controller than as a manager. In particular, tax departments of R&D intensive firms make less tax planning effort, are less ambitious to minimize the tax burden of the firm, are later involved in the decision-making process of a new investment project, but are more likely to have a veto right in the decision on a new investment project as compared to less R&D intensive firms. Conditional on R&D intensity, however, the level of intangible assets in the firm is associated with more tax planning efforts and ambitions. Our results are statistically significant and robust towards several sensitivity checks. |
| Keywords: | corporate taxation,organizational design,survey data |
| JEL: | H25 L22 M41 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14114&r=ino |
| By: | Ruan, Jianqing; Xie, Zhuan; Zhang, Xiaobo |
| Abstract: | Talhelm et al. (2014) provided an original rice theory to explain large psychological differences across countries and even within countries and their impact on innovation. However, their findings are subject to the problems of sample bias, measurement error, and model misspecification. After correcting these problems, most findings in the original paper no longer hold. The authors of this paper collected data on collectivism from other sources and linked them with rice areas but failed to find any relationship as predicted by the rice theory. The role of rice farming in shaping cultural psychology and innovations seems to be much more muted. |
| Keywords: | Rice, Innovation, Sociology, psychology, rice theory, individualism, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1389&r=ino |
| By: | Giovanna Vertova |
| Abstract: | This paper starts with a review of the literature about National Systems of Innovation (NSI), by linking the origin of the concept to the evolutionary theory of the firm and innovation. The first point reviews the flaws of the NSI concept by looking at the pioneering works of Chris Freeman, Bent-Ake Lundvall, and Richard Nelson. These authors' definitions of NSI contain some striking aspects: (1) the definitions are so broad that they can encompass almost everything; (2) although all definitions share the central role played by institutions, the state and its policy are not explicitly mentioned; and (3) it is not clear if the NSI concept is a descriptive or a normative tool. The second point we would like to make is that, when the role of the financial system was finally recognized by evolutionary traditions, it was just added as a "new" element within the NSI. The main aim became one of including the financial system within the NSI and looking for the "right" financial system for the "right" type of innovation. After addressing the weaknesses of the conceptualization of the state within the NSI and the difficulty of the evolutionary theory in understanding the financialization of the economy, our third and last point refers to a new way to view innovations. As Mariana Mazzuccato shows, the state has always been a fundamental, though indirect, actor for the development of certain innovations in certain sectors. Yet this is not enough, especially in a period of crisis. The state should direct innovative activities toward more basic and social needs, thus becoming an "innovator of first resort." |
| Keywords: | Government Intervention; Innovator of First Resort; National Systems of Innovation; Supply-side Economics |
| JEL: | B52 O30 O38 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_823&r=ino |
| By: | Coccia M. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | The fundamental problem in the field of the economics of innovation is which economic subjects are the sources of radical innovations and high technological performances. The study here confronts this problem by developing a theoretical framework underpinned in the concept of purposeful system having a purpose of global leadership, which endeavours to analyse the sources of General-Purpose Technologies GPTs in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition. Through an inductive study based on some societies that in the history have generated technological and economic change Roman and Britain Empire, and current USA, the analysis shows vital characteristics that can be the sources of changes in the techno-economic paradigm. In particular, purposeful country-systems with high economic military potential, supported by a strategy of high RD expenditures, and the objective of global leadership, winning international conflicts against other great powers a very strong competition for the hegemony, tend to generate several inventions and radical innovations that are spread, in the long run, across wide geo-economic areas. It seems that the initial sources of GPTs e.g. aqueduct, steam engine, jet aircraft, computer, etc. are, de facto, associated with the global posture of great powers to achieve/sustain global leadership in intensive effective and/or potential international competitions, rather than warfare per se. This study refers to this nexus as leadership-driven innovation. International conflict is the context that spurs the GPTs, which are driven by global leadership of critical societies, whereas initial military RD, demand and procurement are important mechanisms underlying the process that induces emerging path-breaking technologies. The vital linkages between observed facts can support a general socio-economic framework of the sources of path-breaking innovations based on a leadership of main economic subjects that support innovative activity mainly in communications and energy systems parallel to transportation technology and the evolution and development of human societies. |
| Keywords: | Economic History: General; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913; Economic Development: General; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; Technological Change: Other; |
| JEL: | O31 O39 O10 N00 N31 N33 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014087&r=ino |
| By: | Elena A. Kochetkova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The 1940s – mid-1960s exemplified a rapid development of chemical and cellulose industry internationally. In this period, a number of attempts to introduce new technologies was taken by industrial scientists and engineers, some of which happen simultaneously in different countries. In the late 1930s, Swedish engineer Johan Richter proposed his project to industrialists, and after roughly ten years it succeeded in implementing his specifically designed Kamyr digester at an industrial scale. A couple of years earlier, Soviet engineer Leonid Zherebov offered his own project different from the Swedish one in some technical parameters, but aimed to the same purpose – increasing the production of pulp. This initiative, however, was not introduced as it was planned, and instead after more than 20 years, the Soviet industry mostly produced pulp by continuous method using Kamyr digesters purchased from abroad. Following the question by historian Loren Graham of why Russian innovations often remained lonely ideas, this article seeks to investigate the nature of Soviet innovation by examining Soviet modernization though a case study of continuous pulp cooking. It will focus primarily not only on technological specifics of the innovation, but on social, political conditions. In so doing, this paper will examine activities of engineers and interactions of institutions within the Soviet pulp and paper industry. |
| Keywords: | innovation, Soviet, technology, pulp and paper industry, technological development |
| JEL: | N64 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:76hum2014&r=ino |