nep-ino New Economics Papers
on Innovation
Issue of 2015‒04‒11
sixteen papers chosen by
Steffen Lippert
University of Auckland

  1. R&D Spillovers Effects on strategic behaviour of Large International Firms By Aldieri, Luigi; Aprile, Maria Carmela; Vinci, Concetto Paolo
  2. Avoiding the middle income trap : indigenous innovative effort vs foreign innovative effort By Kang, Byeongwoo; Nabeshima, Kaoru; Cheng, Fang-Ting
  3. The Cost of Knowledge. By Antonelli, Cristiano; Colombelli, Alessandra
  4. China's Semiconductor Industry in Global Value Chains By Xin Xin KONG; Miao ZHANG; Santha Chenayah RAMU
  5. Innovation in Business Group Firms: Influence of Network Diversity By Kerai, Anita; Sharma, Sunil
  6. Eco-innovation and firm growth: Do green gazelles run faster? Microeconometric evidence from a sample of European firms By Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro
  7. Eco-innovation and firm growth: Do green gazelles run faster? Microeconometric evidence from a sample of European firms By Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro
  8. Eco-innovation and firm growth: Do green gazelles run faster? Microeconometric evidence from a sample of European firms By Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro
  9. Persistent Product Innovation and Market-oriented Behaviour: the Impact on Firms' Performance By Primo Autore; Secondo Autore
  10. Environmental policy and invention crowding out. Unlocking the automotive industry from fossil fuel path dependence By Nicolò Barbieri
  11. International R&D Spillovers and other Unobserved Common Spillovers and Shocks By Ruge Leiva, Diego Ivan
  12. What do firms know? What do they produce? A new look at the relationship between patenting profiles and patterns of product diversification By Giovanni Dosi; Marco Grazzi; Daniele Moschella
  13. Corporate Governance, Innovation and Firm Age: Insights and New Evidence. By Bianchini, Stefano; Krafft, Jackie; Quatraro, Francesco; Ravix, Jacques
  14. Catching Up to the Technological Frontier? By Xavier Cirera
  15. Product Innovation and Economic Growth Part IV: Demand changes in an aging society (Japanese) By YOSHIKAWA Hiroshi; ANDO Koichi
  16. Does innovation in residential mortgage products explain rising house prices? No. By de Silva, Ashton J; Boymal, Jonathan; Potts, Jason; Thomas, Stuart

  1. By: Aldieri, Luigi; Aprile, Maria Carmela; Vinci, Concetto Paolo
    Abstract: This study contributes to existing literature on firms’ innovative activity examining the relationship between the R&D rivalry and spillovers at the firm level. In particular, we present an empirical analysis in United States, Japan and Europe based upon a new dataset composed of 879 worldwide R&D-intensive firms. In order to identify the technological proximity, we use the Jaffe industry weight matrix, based on the construction of technological vectors for each firm, where its patents are distributed across technology classes, in such a way that we compute knowledge spillovers. Opportune econometric techniques, which deal with both firm’s unobserved heterogeneity and weak exogeneity of the explanatory variables, are implemented. In order to test the robustness of our results, we introduce also the combined spatial-autoregressive model with autoregressive disturbances and additional endogenous variables. The empirical results are differentiated across countries, and suggest that the spatial effects are statistically significant
    Keywords: Spatial models; Innovation; R&D spillovers
    JEL: C31 C33 O31 R15
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63402&r=ino
  2. By: Kang, Byeongwoo; Nabeshima, Kaoru; Cheng, Fang-Ting
    Abstract: This paper investigates how innovation potential of a country contributes to avoid or escape the middle income trap. We measure innovation potentials of 77 countries from 1975 to 2010 from patent data. Then, we test whether indigenous innovative efforts or foreign ones help avoid and escape middle income traps
    Keywords: Developing countries, Developed countries, Economic growth, Technological innovations, Middle income trap, Innovation, Duration model
    JEL: C41 O30 O40
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper509&r=ino
  3. By: Antonelli, Cristiano; Colombelli, Alessandra (University of Turin)
    Abstract: This paper contributes the economics of knowledge and innovation with the analysis of the knowledge cost function and sheds light on the determinants of the large variance in the cost of innovation across firms. The amount and the structure of external knowledge and the internal stocks of knowledge that firms can access and use in the generation of new technological knowledge help firms to reduce the costs of innovations. The empirical section is based upon a panel of companies listed on UK and the main continental Europe financial markets (Germany, France and Italy) for the period 1995 – 2006, for which information about patents have been gathered. The econometric analysis of the costs of knowledge considers the unit costs of patents on the right hand side, and on the left hand side next to R&D expenditures, the stock of knowledge internal and external to each firm. In order to articulate the different facets of the external knowledge that is made accessible by proximity with firms co-localized in the same region (NUTS2), we further include other variables proxying for regional variety, complementarity and similarity. The results confirm that the stock of internal knowledge and the access to external knowledge play a key role in reducing the actual cost of the generation of new technological knowledge at the firm level.
    Date: 2014–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201411&r=ino
  4. By: Xin Xin KONG (Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development); Miao ZHANG (Department of Development Studies, University of Malaya); Santha Chenayah RAMU (Department of Economics, University of Malaya)
    Abstract: This article examines how global production networks have benefited technological upgrading in the semiconductor industry in China. The evidence shows that trade has impacted positively on technological capabilities. The empirical evidence show that 93 percent of firms were engaged in incremental innovation activities, while 87 percent in new product development in 2012. The mean R&D intensity was 6.3 percent. State-owned enterprises showed the lowest mean of 5.3 percent. The mean share of R&D personnel in workforce was 28.2 percent. Government support (90 percent) and collaboration with universities and research institutes (87 percent) has been pertinent in firms’ participation in R&D activities.
    Keywords: China, innovation, integrated circuit, semiconductors, technological capabilities
    JEL: L62 L22 L14 O31
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2015-15&r=ino
  5. By: Kerai, Anita; Sharma, Sunil
    Abstract: Extant research on influence of ownership structure on innovation suggests a positive relationship between business group affiliation and innovation. While it is true that firms affiliated to business groups seem to benefit from availability of internal capital, determinants that influence the process of innovation have not been examined. This Paper aims to study the influence of network diversity on innovation for firms affiliated to a business group. We draw upon literature on resource based and principal-agency literature to study nature of knowledge exploration and exploitation by business group firms. We argue that network diversity impacts nature of innovation by business group firms.
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:13335&r=ino
  6. By: Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of eco-innovation on firms’ growth processes, with a special focus on gazelles, i.e. firms’ showing higher growth rates than the average. In a context shaped by more and more stringent environmental regulatory frameworks, we posit that inducement mechanisms stimulate the adoption of green technologies, increasing the derived demand for technologies produced by upstream firms supplying eco-innovations. For these reason we expect the generation of green technologies to trigger sales growth. We use firm-level data drawn from the Bureau van Dijk Database, coupled with patent information obtained from the OECD Science and Technology Indicators. The results confirm that eco-innovations are likely to augment the effects of generic innovation on firms’ growth, and this is particularly true for gazelles, which actually appear to run faster than the others.
    Keywords: Gazelles, Eco-Innovation, firms’ growth, Inducement mechanisms, derived demand, WIPO Green Inventory
    JEL: L10 L20 O32 O33 Q53 Q55
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feu:wfewop:y:2015:m:3:d:0:i:88&r=ino
  7. By: Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro (University of Turin)
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of eco-innovation on firms’ growth processes, with a special focus on gazelles, i.e. firms’ showing higher growth rates than the average. In a context shaped by more and more stringent environmental regulatory frameworks, we posit that inducement mechanisms stimulate the adoption of green technologies, increasing the derived demand for technologies produced by upstream firms supplying eco-innovations. For these reason we expect the generation of green technologies to trigger sales growth. We use firm-level data drawn from the Bureau van Dijk Database, coupled with patent information obtained from the OECD Science and Technology Indicators. The results confirm that eco-innovations are likely to augment the effects of generic innovation on firms’ growth, and this is particularly true for gazelles, which actually appear to run faster than the others.
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201516&r=ino
  8. By: Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro (University of Turin)
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of eco-innovation on firms’ growth processes, with a special focus on gazelles, i.e. firms’ showing higher growth rates than the average. In a context shaped by more and more stringent environmental regulatory frameworks, we posit that inducement mechanisms stimulate the adoption of green technologies, increasing the derived demand for technologies produced by upstream firms supplying eco-innovations. For these reason we expect the generation of green technologies to trigger sales growth. We use firm-level data drawn from the Bureau van Dijk Database, coupled with patent information obtained from the OECD Science and Technology Indicators. The results confirm that eco-innovations are likely to augment the effects of generic innovation on firms’ growth, and this is particularly true for gazelles, which actually appear to run faster than the others.
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201505&r=ino
  9. By: Primo Autore (ISTAT, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica); Secondo Autore (DISCE, Università Cattolica)
    Abstract: This paper provides an empirical investigation of the impact of innovation on firms' economic performance pinpointing complementarities between product and marketing innovation during the period 1998-2008. Firms' profitability and productivity are simultaneously estimated, thus allowing for consistent and robust estimates of the relationship being tested. The conceptual framework in which we have developed the analysis bridges the gap between the management (organization) approach, from which we grasp the notion of a firm's market orientation to innovation, and the economics of innovation perspective. The results show that being a persistent product-innovating and market-oriented firm significantly affects profitability, although the estimated impact is relatively mild. The gain in productivity determined by investing in R&D is relatively small and in line with the corresponding gain attributable to investing in marketing and organizational innovations. Conversely, capital deepening as measured by the capital-labor ratio-exerts a larger impact on productivity, thus underlining how knowledge capital plays a less relevant role. This result emphasizes a crucial weakness of Italian manufacturing firms, because knowledge investment is the key to future economic growth. The estimates we have presented cover a sufficiently long time interval, thus enabling us to perform different robustness tests.
    Keywords: Product Innovation, Market Orientation, European Community Innovation Survey, Profitability, Productivity
    JEL: L25
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie2:dises1505&r=ino
  10. By: Nicolò Barbieri (Deptartment of Economics. University of Bologna, Italy.)
    Abstract: This paper aims to shed light on the drivers that encourage a shift from incumbent internal combustion engine technologies towards low-emission vehicle technologies. We emphasise the role of fuel prices, one of the main drivers of environmental innovation, and other features of the technology space (such as technological proximity), in impacting technological dynamics and fossil fuel technological lock-ins. Specifically, we investigate whether green technological efforts come at the expense of other environmental or non-environmental inventive activities. In doing so, we employ Self-Organised Maps (SOMs) to detect the main technological domains exploited by the automotive industry during the period 1982-2008, using triadic patent families as a proxy for technological efforts pursued in each technological field. On the one hand, we test whether these drivers foster the substitution of non-green patents with green ones. On the other, we analyse if they favour substitution between technological efforts related to alternative vehicles, de facto influencing low-emitting vehicle competition. Our findings suggest that higher tax-inclusive fuel prices (used as a proxy for carbon tax) are effective in redirecting patenting activities from non-green to green technological fields. In addition, we observe a similar impact when we focus on green technological fields. Although this result may involve the risk of potential lock-in into sub-optimal substituting technologies, there are insights that the competition within the environmental technological domain mainly regards technological efforts spent on greening conventional cars and developing low-emission vehicles.
    Keywords: Environmental technologies, Self-Organising Maps, Crowding out, Fuel prices, Patent data
    JEL: O32 Q55 L62
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:srt:wpaper:0615&r=ino
  11. By: Ruge Leiva, Diego Ivan
    Abstract: Studies which are based on Coe and Helpman (1995) and use weighted foreign R&D variables to estimate channel-specific R&D spillovers disregard the interaction between international R&D spillovers and other unobserved common spillovers and shocks. Using a panel of 50 economies from 1970-2011, we find that disregarding this interaction leads to inconsistent estimates whenever knowledge spillovers and other unobserved effects are correlated with foreign and domestic R&D. When this interaction is modeled, estimates are consistent; however, they confound foreign and domestic R&D effects with unobserved effects. Thus, the coefficient of a weighted foreign R&D variable cannot capture genuine channel-specific R&D spillovers.
    Keywords: Productivity, Cross-Section Dependence, Unobserved Common Spillovers and Shocks.
    JEL: C23 O11 O30 O40
    Date: 2015–01–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63500&r=ino
  12. By: Giovanni Dosi; Marco Grazzi; Daniele Moschella
    Abstract: In this work we analyze the relationship between the patterns of firm diversification, if any, across product lines and across bodies of innovative knowledge, proxied by the patent classes where the firm is present. Putting it more emphatically we investigate the relationship between "what a firm doe" and "what a firm knows". Using a newly developed dataset matching information on patents and products at the firm level, we provide evidence concerning firms' technological and product scope, their relationships, the size-scaling and coherence properties of diversication itself. Our analysis shows that typically firms are much more diversified in terms of products than in terms of technologies, with their main products more related to the exploitation of their innovative knowledge. The scaling properties show that the number of products and technologies increase log-linearly as firms grow. And the directions of diversification themselves display coherence between neighboring activities also at relatively high degrees of diversification. These findings are well in tune with a capability-based theory of the firm.
    Date: 2015–01–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2015/05&r=ino
  13. By: Bianchini, Stefano; Krafft, Jackie; Quatraro, Francesco; Ravix, Jacques (University of Turin)
    Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and innovation according to firms’ age by combining insights from the recent strand of contributions analysing CG and innovation with the lifecycle literature. We find a negative relationship between CG and innovation which is stronger for young firms than for mature ones. The empirical analysis is carried out on a sample of firms drawn from the ISSR isk Metrics database and observed over the period 2003 -2008. The parametric methodology provides results that are consistent with the literature and supports the idea that mature firms are better off than young ones. We check for possible non-linearities by implementing a non-parametric analysis and suggest that the negative relationship between CG and innovation is mostly driven by higher values of CG.
    Date: 2015–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201502&r=ino
  14. By: Xavier Cirera
    Keywords: Education - Knowledge for Development Information and Communication Technologies - ICT Policy and Strategies Social Protections and Labor - Labor Policies Science and Technology Development - Innovation Private Sector Development - E-Business Science and Technology Development - Innovation Science and Technology Development - Technology Innovation
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:21684&r=ino
  15. By: YOSHIKAWA Hiroshi; ANDO Koichi
    Abstract: Under a declining population, the engine for economic growth is regarded as broadly defined technical progress or innovation. We demonstrate that the production of goods always follows logistic growth. This simple fact results from the saturation of demand for any existing goods and services. This indicates that the growth rate of an advanced economy will eventually fall to zero unless new goods and services are introduced to the market; namely, product innovation is paramount to economic growth. The role of product innovation is not fully captured by the endogenous growth literature which emphasizes the importance of innovation. We present two case studies—hybrid cars and disposable diapers for the aged—to demonstrate the significance of product innovation.
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:15012&r=ino
  16. By: de Silva, Ashton J; Boymal, Jonathan; Potts, Jason; Thomas, Stuart
    Abstract: Like many consumer products, household mortgages have experienced significant innovation in recent decades, with mortgages becoming cheaper, more accessible, and with more features. Many observers have expected that this would increase demand for houses, contributing to a rise in house prices. We investigate this relation, both in terms the extent and timing of innovation in residential mortgage products, and then we critically assess whether there is a link with Melbourne Metropolitan house prices (post 1980). Our conclusion is surprising: we find no apparent evidence of a relationship between residential mortgage innovation and house prices.
    Keywords: Home Mortgage, Financial Innovation, House Prices,
    JEL: E69 G18 R31
    Date: 2015–01–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62548&r=ino

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