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on Innovation |
| By: | Barra, Cristian; Maietta, Ornella Wanda; Zotti, Roberto |
| Abstract: | According to the National Innovation System (NIS) approach, the innovative capabilities of a firm are explained by its interactions with other national agents involved in the innovation process and by formal and informal rules that regulate the system. This paper intends to verify how product and process innovation in the European food and drink industry are affected by: i) the NIS structure in terms of universities vs public research labs, faculties/department mix and size; ii) the NIS output in terms of WoS indexed publications vs the supply of graduates; iii) the NIS fragmentation and coordination and iv) the NIS scientific impact and specialisation.The source of data on firm innovation is the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-UniCredit dataset supplemented by information from the International Handbook of Universities, Eurostat and the bibliometric analysis of academic research quality. The results obtained suggest that large size of public research institutions are detrimental to interactions between university and industry and the indicators used for public research assessment are not appropriate proxies of local knowledge spillovers. |
| Keywords: | university–industry interaction, firm R&D collaboration, product and process innovation, academic research quality, university education, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, O3, I23, D22, R1, |
| Date: | 2016–06–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aiea16:242320&r=ino |
| By: | Antoine Dechezleprêtre; Elias Einiö; Ralf Martin; Kieu-Trang Nguyen; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | We present evidence of a causal impact of research and development (R&D) tax incentives on innovation. We exploit a change in the asset-based size thresholds for eligibility for R&D tax subsidies and implement a Regression Discontinuity Design using administrative tax data on the population of UK firms. There are statistically and economically significant effects of the tax change on both R&D and patenting (even when quality-adjusted). R&D tax price elasticities are large at about 2.6, probably because the treated group is from a sub-population of smaller firms and subject to financial constraints. There does not appear to be pre-policy manipulation of assets around the thresholds that could undermine our design. Over the 2006-11 period aggregate business R&D would be around 10% lower in the absence of the tax relief scheme. We also show that the R&D generated by the tax policy creates positive spillovers on the innovations of techno-logically related firms. |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22405&r=ino |
| By: | Christian Fons-Rosen; Vincenzo Scrutinio; Katalin Szemeredi |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the entry of large corporations into U.S. counties during the 1980s and 1990s to analyse the effect of plant opening on knowledge spillovers to local inventors. We use a difference-in-differences identification strategy exploiting information on the revealed ranking of possible locations for large plants in the US. Under the identifying assumption that locations not chosen (losers) are a counterfactual for the chosen location (winner), we find that patents of these large corporations are 68% more likely to be cited in the winning counties relative to the losing counties after entry. The effect materializes after the opening of the plant, rather than after the entry decision itself. The increase in citations is stronger for more recent patents whereas patent quality does not seem to play an important role. We find that the increase in citations is larger from patents belonging to the same technology class of the cited patent. |
| Keywords: | productivity, innovation, knowledge diffusion |
| JEL: | O3 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1447&r=ino |
| By: | Masatoshi Kato (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University); Haibo Zhou (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | Using a panel data set based on repeated questionnaire surveys in Japan, this study examines the effects of numerical labor flexibility on innovation outcomes of start-up firms, a topic that has not been well examined in the literature. Using a random-effects probit model, the estimation results indicate that the use of temporary employees significantly increases the probability of product innovation. In addition, numerical flexibility, measured as external labor turnover of regular employees, initially increases and then decreases the probability of patent application. The implications of our findings are discussed. |
| Keywords: | start-up firm, numerical flexibility, regular employee flexibility, nonregular employee flexibility, innovation outcome, panel data |
| JEL: | M13 M50 J63 O32 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kgu:wpaper:146&r=ino |
| By: | Wendy C.Y. Li; Bronwyn H. Hall |
| Abstract: | We develop a forward-looking profit model to estimate the depreciation rates of business R&D capital. By using data from Compustat, BEA, and NSF between 1987 and 2008, and the newly developed model, we estimate both constant and time-varying industry-specific R&D depreciation rates. The estimates are the first complete set of R&D depreciation rates for major U.S. high-tech industries. They align with the main conclusions from recent studies that the rates are in general higher than the traditionally assumed 15 percent and vary across industries. The relative ranking of the constant R&D depreciation rates among industries is consistent with industry observations and the industry-specific time-varying rates are informative about the dynamics of technological change and the levels of competition across industries. Lastly, we also present a cross-country comparison of the R&D depreciation rates between the U.S. and Japan, and find that the results reflect the relative technological competitiveness in key industries. |
| JEL: | D20 G12 L20 O30 O32 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22473&r=ino |
| By: | Robert W. Fairlie; Javier Miranda |
| Abstract: | Job creation is one of the most important aspects of entrepreneurship, but we know relatively little about the hiring patterns and decisions of startups. Longitudinal data from the Integrated Longitudinal Business Database (iLBD), Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS), and the Growing America through Entrepreneurship (GATE) experiment are used to provide some of the first evidence in the literature on the determinants of taking the leap from a non-employer to employer firm among startups. Several interesting patterns emerge regarding the dynamics of non-employer startups hiring their first employee. Hiring rates among the universe of non-employer startups are very low, but increase when the population of non-employers is focused on more growth-oriented businesses such as incorporated and EIN businesses. If non-employer startups hire, the bulk of hiring occurs in the first few years of existence. After this point in time relatively few non-employer startups hire an employee. Focusing on more growth- and employment-oriented startups in the KFS, we find that Asian-owned and Hispanic-owned startups have higher rates of hiring their first employee than white-owned startups. Female-owned startups are roughly 10 percentage points less likely to hire their first employee by the first, second and seventh years after startup. The education level of the owner, however, is not found to be associated with the probability of hiring an employee. Among business characteristics, we find evidence that business assets and intellectual property are associated with hiring the first employee. Using data from the largest random experiment providing entrepreneurship training in the United States ever conducted, we do not find evidence that entrepreneurship training increases the likelihood that non-employers hire their first employee. |
| JEL: | L26 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22428&r=ino |
| By: | T. M. A. Fink; M. Reeves; R. Palma; R. S. Farr |
| Abstract: | We introduce a model of innovation in which products are composed of components and new components are adopted one at a time. We show that the number of products we can make now gives a distorted view of the number we can make in the future: the more complex a product is, the more it gets under-represented. From this complexity discount we derive a strategy for increasing the rate of innovation by choosing components on the basis of long-term growth rather than just short-term gain. We test our model on data from language, gastronomy and technology and predict the best strategy for innovating in each. |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1608.01900&r=ino |
| By: | OKADA, Yoshimi; NAGAOKA, Sadao |
| Abstract: | We investigate the global spread of pharmaceutical patent protections as acquired by firms, based on a novel global patent database for all significant medical drugs introduced in Japan. It gives us the propensity of filing and grant rate for each country for the granted patents in Japan. Major findings are the following. Both the filing propensity to and the grant rate of major Asian countries approached those of the OECD economies by the early 2000s for chemical substance inventions. However, there still exists substantial heterogeneity with respect to the other drug inventions: crystal, use, formulation or combination, suggesting a significant future room for international harmonization of patent granting standard. We found clear evidence for policy impact on the spread of protections for the two largest non-OECD economies. The Patent Law reform in China in 1993 had an immediate and significant impact on patent filing propensity to China (25 percentage points increase) well before it becoming a WTO member in late 2001. Furthermore, the mailbox application system in India had a substantial effect: the filing propensity reached 80 percent of the number of corresponding EP patent applications around year 2000, well before the year of TRIPS implementation for drug patents. |
| Keywords: | pharmaceutical patent, chemical substance patent, TRIPS Agreement, India, China, propensity of patent filing, grant rate |
| JEL: | O34 O38 K29 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:iirwps:16-07&r=ino |
| By: | Gregory F. Nemet; Martina Kraus; Vera Zipperer |
| Abstract: | Moving non-incremental innovations from the pilot scale to full commercial scale raises questions about the need and implementation of public support. Heuristics from the literature put policy makers in a dilemma between addressing a market failure and acknowledging a government failure: incentives for private investments in large scale demonstrations are weak (the valley of death) but the track record of governance in large demonstration projects is poor (the technology pork barrel). We reassess these arguments in the literature, particularly as to how they apply to sup- porting demonstration projects for decarbonizing industry. Conditions for the valley of death exist with: low appropriability, large chunky investments, unproven reliability, and uncertain future markets. We build a data set of 511 demonstration projects in nine technology areas and code characteristics for each project, including timing, motivations, and scale. We argue that the literature and the results from the case studies have five main implications for policy makers in making decisions about demonstration support. Policy makers should consider: 1) prioritizing learning, 2) iterative upscaling, 3) private sector engagement, 4) broad knowledge dissemination, and 5) making demand pull robust. |
| Keywords: | Demonstrations, technology push, demand pull |
| JEL: | Q55 O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1601&r=ino |
| By: | Nathan Goldschlag; Stefano Bianchini; Julia Lane; Joseba SanMartin Sola; Bruce Weinberg |
| Abstract: | Public support of research typically relies on the notion that universities are engines of economic development, and that university research is a primary driver of high wage localized economic activity. Yet the evidence supporting that notion is based on aggregate descriptive data, rather than detailed links at the level of individual transactions. Here we use new micro-data from three countries - France, Spain and the United States - to examine one mechanism whereby such economic activity is generated, namely purchases from regional businesses. We show that grant funds are more likely to be expended at businesses physically closer to universities than at those farther away. In addition, if a vendor has been a supplier to a grant once, that vendor is subsequently more likely to be a vendor on the same or related grants. Firms behave in a way that is consistent with the notion that propinquity is good for business; if a firm supplies a research grant at a university in a given year it is more likely to open an establishment near that university in subsequent years than other firms. |
| Keywords: | Science policy, innovation, regional economic development, UMETRICS |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:16-32&r=ino |
| By: | Felipe González; Guillermo Marshall; Suresh Naidu |
| Abstract: | Slave property rights yielded a source of collateral as well as a coerced labor force. Using data from Dun and Bradstreet linked to the 1860 census and slave schedules in Maryland, we find that slaveowners were more likely to start businesses prior to the uncompensated 1864 emancipation, even conditional on total wealth and human capital, and this advantage disappears after emancipation. We assess a number of potential explanations, and find suggestive evidence that this is due to the superiority of slave wealth as a source of collateral for credit rather than any advantage in production. The collateral dimension of slave property magnifies its importance to historical American economic development. |
| JEL: | N31 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22483&r=ino |
| By: | Ben Dkhil, Inès |
| Abstract: | The regulation has the greatest role in forcing the introduction and the establishment of competition in the fixed telecom markets by facilitating the entrants’ access conditions to the incumbent’s infrastructure facilities (the local loop). Recently, the sole way to ensure the development of telecom industry consists to promote innovation and investment in network infrastructure technologies. This paper provides a critical review of both recent theoretical and empirical literature that address the issues of regulation on innovation and investment in the fixed telecommunication in-frastructures. |
| Keywords: | bottleneck, access regulation policies, investment in network upgrade, service-based competition, facility-based competition. |
| JEL: | K21 L1 L12 L51 |
| Date: | 2014–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72910&r=ino |
| By: | Escribano, Álvaro; Blazsek, Szabolcs |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests new Dynamic Conditional Score (DCS) count panel data models. We compare the statistical performance of static model, finite distributed lag model, exponential feedback model and different DCS count panel data models. For DCS we consider random walk and quasi-autoregressive formulations of dynamics. We use panel data for a large cross section of United States firms for period 1979 to 2000. We estimate models by using the Poisson quasi-maximum likelihood estimator with fixed effects. The estimation results and diagnostics tests suggest that the statistical performance of DCS-QAR is superior to that of alternative models. |
| Keywords: | quasi-maximum likelihood; dynamic conditional score; count panel data; research and development |
| JEL: | O3 C52 C51 C35 C33 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:23458&r=ino |
| By: | Joshua D. Gottlieb; Richard R. Townsend; Ting Xu |
| Abstract: | Do potential entrepreneurs remain in wage employment because of the danger that they will face worse job opportunities should their entrepreneurial ventures fail? Using a Canadian reform that extended job-protected leave to one year for women giving birth after a cutoff date, we study whether the option to return to a previous job increases entrepreneurship. A regression discontinuity design reveals that longer job-protected leave increases entrepreneurship by 1.8 percentage points. The results are driven by more educated entrepreneurs, starting firms that survive at least five years and hire paid employees, in industries where experimentation is more valuable. |
| JEL: | H50 J13 J16 J65 J88 L26 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22446&r=ino |
| By: | Claudio F. Loderer (University of Berne - Institute for Financial Management; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); Swiss Finance Institute); Urs Waelchli (Rochester-Bern Executive Programs; University of Rochester - Simon Business School); Jonas Zeller (University of Berne – Institute for Financial Management) |
| Abstract: | Even though firms’ innovation efforts dwindle in reaction to weaker employment protection legislation (EPL), we show that the value of their investment opportunities actually increases. The reason is that weaker EPL discourages innovation efforts only in firms with little comparative advantage at innovation. At the same time, however, weaker EPL increases the financial and operating flexibility of firms. This flexibility gain can explain why Tobin’s q increases in reaction to weaker EPL. |
| Keywords: | employment protection, innovation, investment opportunities, financial flexibility, operating flexibility |
| JEL: | G30 L20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp1607&r=ino |
| By: | Verdolini, Elena; Anadón, Laura Diaz; Baker, Erin; Bosetti, Valentina; Reis, Lara Aleluia |
| Abstract: | Expert elicitation is a process for eliciting subjective probability distributions from experts about items of interest to decision makers. These methods have been increasingly applied in the energy domain to collect information on the future cost and performance of specific energy technologies and the associated uncertainty. This article reviews the existing expert elicitations on energy technologies with three main objectives: (1) to provide insights on expert elicitation methods and how they compare/complement other approaches to inform public energy decision making; (2) to review all recent elicitation exercises about future technology costs; and (3) to discuss the main results from these expert elicitations, in terms of implied rates of cost reduction and the role of R&D investments in shaping these reductions, and compare it with insights from backward looking approaches. We argue that the emergence of data on future energy costs through expert elicitations provides the opportunity for more transparent and robust analyses incorporating technical uncertainty to assess energy and climate change mitigation policies. |
| Keywords: | Energy Technologies, R&D Investments, Expert Elicitations, Uncertainty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q5, Q55, |
| Date: | 2016–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemmi:243148&r=ino |
| By: | Simplice Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroun); Agyenim Boateng (Glasgow, UK); Raphael Akamavi (Hull, UK) |
| Abstract: | A recent World Bank report reveals that poverty has been decreasing in all regions of the world with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as more than 45% of countries in the sub-region are off-track from achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) extreme poverty target. This paper investigates the effects of mobile phone technology, knowledge creation and diffusion on inclusive human development in 49 SSA countries for the period 2000-2012 using Tobit model. The study finds that mobile phone penetration in SSA is pivotal to sustainable and inclusive human development irrespective of the country’s level of income, legal origins, religious orientation and the state of the nation. However, the pupil-teacher ratio exerts a negative influence on inclusive human development. The net effects of interactions between the mobile phone and knowledge diffusion variables are positive. |
| Keywords: | Mobile phones; inclusive human development; Africa |
| JEL: | G20 I10 I32 O40 O55 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:16/027&r=ino |
| By: | Maarten Goos; Joep Konings; Marieke Vandeweyer |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that high-tech employment - broadly defined as all workers in high-tech sectors but also workers with STEM degrees in low-tech sectors - has increased in Europe over the past decade. Moreover, we estimate that every high-tech job in a region creates five additional low-tech jobs in that region because of the existence of a local high-tech job multiplier. The paper also shows how the presence of a local high-tech job multiplier results in convergence between Europe's regions. That is, employment in Europe's lagging regions is becoming more similar to Europe's high-tech hubs. However, our estimates suggest that this convergence is happening at a glacial pace, and some suggestive evidence is presented that lifting several institutional barriers to innovation in Europe's lagging regions would speed up convergence leading to faster high-tech as well as overall employment while also addressing Europe's regional inequalities. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:vivwps:547246&r=ino |
| By: | Anna Valero; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | We develop a new dataset using UNESCO source materials on the location of nearly 15,000 universities in about 1,500 regions across 78 countries, some dating back to the 11th Century. We estimate fixed effects models at the sub-national level between 1950 and 2010 and find that increases in the number of universities are positively associated with future growth of GDP per capita (and this relationship is robust to controlling for a host of observables, as well as unobserved regional trends). Our estimates imply that doubling the number of universities per capita is associated with 4% higher future GDP per capita. Furthermore, there appear to be positive spillover effects from universities to geographically close neighbouring regions. We show that the relationship between growth and universities is not simply driven by the direct expenditures of the university, its staff and students. Part of the effect of universities on growth is mediated through an increased supply of human capital and greater innovation (although the magnitudes are not large). We find that within countries, higher historical university presence is associated with stronger pro-democratic attitudes. |
| Keywords: | universities, growth, human capital, innovation |
| JEL: | I23 I25 J24 O10 O31 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1444&r=ino |
| By: | Pedro Lara de Arruda (IPC-IG); Jeni Vaitsman (IPC-IG) |
| Abstract: | "Over the last decade, the global health agenda has converged around proposals for the construction of policies and interventions towards greater equity. Despite the great diversity in their historical and institutional contexts, developing countries face similar health care challenges, including inequity regarding access to services and to quality medicines, the prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and the strengthening of capacities in scientific and technological development". (...) |
| Keywords: | Health policy, emerging economies,innovations, challenges |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:ifocus:35&r=ino |