|
on Innovation |
| By: | Link, Albert (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); Wagner, Caroline (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we chronicle key U.S. legislative initiatives during the post-World War II history of public policy related to the ownership of publicly funded research-based knowledge. Our motivation for recording this history is the observation that many scholars, who are appropriately concerned about taxpayer rights, have argued for the need for public policy to clarify ownership of the publicness or openness of publicly funded research results when in fact such public policies have long been in place. We conclude this historical trace with the proposition that if the past is prologue to the future, one might expect future administrations to continue to acknowledge the importance of public access to findings from publicly funded research, be that research having occurred in federal laboratories, universities, or private-sector organizations. |
| Keywords: | Publicly funded R&D; open access; National Technical Information Service; Bayh-Dole Act; Stevenson-Wydler Act; |
| JEL: | H11 H54 O34 |
| Date: | 2021–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2021_005&r= |
| By: | Parello, Carmelo Pierpaolo |
| Abstract: | This paper incorporates endogenous migration into a second-generation Schumpeterian growth model to study how migration, innovation and growth interact one another. I find that migration always enhances the rates of innovation and growth of the receiving economy, but also that the other way round is not true when the gap in technical knowledge between country is fixed over time. However, when the technology gap is allowed to adjusts endogenously, I find that implementing pro-innovation policies in the receiving economy shrinks immigration flows and reduces the across-country technology. |
| Keywords: | R&D-based Growth, Labor Migration, R&D policy, Technology Transfer |
| JEL: | J61 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2021–06–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:108701&r= |
| By: | Josh Lerner; Amit Seru; Nick Short; Yuan Sun |
| Abstract: | We develop a unique dataset of 24 thousand U.S. finance patents granted over last two decades to explore the evolution and production of financial innovation. We use machine learning to identify the financial patents and extensively audit the results to ensure their reasonableness. We find that patented financial innovation is substantial and economically important, with the number of annual grants expanding from a few dozen in the 1990s to over 2000 in the 2010s. The subject matter of financial patents has changed, consistent with the industry’s shift in revenue and value-added towards household investors and borrowers. The surge in financial patenting was driven by information technology firms and others outside of financial sector, which collectively accounted for 69% of the awards. The location of innovation has shifted, with banks moving this activity from regions with tight financial regulation to more permissive ones. High-tech regions have attracted financial innovation by payments, IT, and other non-financial firms. Turning to the source of these ideas, while academic knowledge remained associated with more valuable patents, citations in finance patents to academic papers, especially in those by banks, fell sharply. |
| JEL: | G20 O31 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28980&r= |
| By: | Klein, Michael A; Sener, Fuat |
| Abstract: | We develop a model of Schumpeterian growth featuring a stochastic diffusion process where the rate of commercial success of product innovations is endogenously determined by advertising intensity. We consider both informative advertising, which young technological leaders use to increase the probability of diffusion, and defensive advertising, which incumbents use to prevent the diffusion of competing products. Economic growth depends positively on the arrival rate of product innovations and the diffusion rate of innovations into the mainstream market. We show that R&D subsidies shift relative investment incentives towards innovation and away from diffusion. This creates an inverted U-shaped relationship between R&D subsidies and both economic growth and welfare as innovations arrive more frequently, but fewer commercialize successfully. We find that lower advertising costs increase diffusion, growth, and welfare when advertising is purely informative. When we include defensive advertising, lower costs lead to socially wasteful increases in resources devoted to advertising without large increases in diffusion, reducing growth and welfare. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous growth; innovation; diffusion; commercialization; advertising; marketing; R&D subsidies |
| JEL: | M30 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2021–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:108470&r= |
| By: | Scandura, Alessandra; Iammarino, Simona |
| Abstract: | This work explores the role of university department characteristics in academic engagement with industry. In particular, we investigate the role played by research quality and previous experience in academic engagement across different scientific disciplines. We test our hypotheses on a dataset of public sponsored university-industry partnerships in the United Kingdom, combined with data from the UK Research Assessment Exercises 2001 and 2008. Our analysis reveals a negative link between academic quality and the level of engagement with industry for departments in the basic sciences and a positive relationship for departments in the applied sciences. Our results further show that the role of research quality for academic engagement strictly depends on the level of the department’s previous experience in university-industry partnerships, notably in the basic sciences, where experience acts as a moderating factor. The findings of this work are highly relevant for policy makers and university managers and contribute to the innovation literature focused on the investigation of the determinants of valuable knowledge transfer practices in academia. |
| Keywords: | academic engagement; academic quality; experience; university-industry collaboration; Springer deal |
| JEL: | I23 O30 |
| Date: | 2021–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:110854&r= |
| By: | Ernest Miguelez (Université de Bordeaux and AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona); Andrea Morrison (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | How do regions enter new and distant technological fields? Who is triggering this process? This work addresses these compelling research questions by investigating the role of migrant inventors in the process of technological diversification. Immigrant inventors can indeed act as carriers of knowledge across borders and influence the direction of technological change. We test these latter propositions by using an original dataset of immigrant inventors in the context of European regions during the period 2003-2011. Our findings show that: immigrant inventors generate positive local knowledge spillovers; they help their host regions to develop new technological specialisations; they trigger a process of unrelated diversification. Their contribution comes via two main mechanisms: immigrant inventors use their own personal knowledge (knowledge creation); they import knowledge from their home country to the host region (knowledge transfer). Their impact is maximised when their knowledge is not recombined with the local one (in mixed teams of inventors), but it is reused (in teams made by only migrant inventors). Our work contributes to the existing literature of regional diversification by providing fresh evidence of unrelated diversification for European regions and by identifying important agents of structural change. It also contributes to the literature of migration and innovation by adding fresh evidence on European regions and by unveiling some of the mechanisms of immigrants’ knowledge transmission. |
| Keywords: | Patents, Migration, Technological diversification, Relatedness, Europe. JEL classification: O30, F20, F60 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202105&r= |
| By: | Christoph March; Ina Schieferdecker |
| Abstract: | Aspirations towards technological sovereignty increasingly pervade the political debate. Yet, an ambiguous definition leaves the exact goal of those aspirations and the policies to fulfill them unclear. This leaves room for partly particularly negative interpretations, such as equating the concept with a strive for autarky, nationalism, and the roll-back of globalization. We develop a competence-based definition of technological sovereignty, which puts innovation policy at the core of fulfilling sovereignty aspirations. Moreover, we show how our definition realigns technological sovereignty with international cooperation and trade. Two case studies illustrate how innovation policy might be used to achieve technological sovereignty. |
| Keywords: | technological sovereignty, innovation policy, international cooperation, Industrie 4.0, EUV lithography |
| JEL: | O32 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9139&r= |
| By: | Nicholas Bloom; Tarek Alexander Hassan; Aakash Kalyani; Josh Lerner; Ahmed Tahoun |
| Abstract: | We identify novel technologies using textual analysis of patents, job postings, and earnings calls. Our approach enables us to identify and document the diffusion of 29 disruptive technologies across firms and labor markets in the U.S. Five stylized facts emerge from our data. First, the locations where technologies are developed that later disrupt businesses are geographically highly concentrated, even more so than overall patenting. Second, as the technologies mature and the number of new jobs related to them grows, they gradually spread across space. While initial hiring is concentrated in high-skilled jobs, over time the mean skill level in new positions associated with the technologies declines, broadening the types of jobs that adopt a given technology. At the same time, the geographic diffusion of low-skilled positions is significantly faster than higher-skilled ones, so that the locations where initial discoveries were made retain their leading positions among high-paying positions for decades. Finally, these technology hubs are more likely to arise in areas with universities and high skilled labor pools. |
| JEL: | O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28999&r= |
| By: | Michael Park; Erin Leahey; Russell Funk |
| Abstract: | Although the number of new scientific discoveries and technological inventions has increased dramatically over the past century, there have also been concerns of a slowdown in the progress of science and technology. We analyze 25 million papers and 4 million patents across 6 decades and find that science and technology are becoming less disruptive of existing knowledge, a pattern that holds nearly universally across fields. We link this decline in disruptiveness to a narrowing in the utilization of existing knowledge. Diminishing quality of published science and changes in citation practices are unlikely to be responsible for this trend, suggesting that this pattern represents a fundamental shift in science and technology. |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2106.11184&r= |
| By: | Nicholas Bloom; Philip Bunn; Paul Mizen; Pawel Smietanka; Gregory Thwaites |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of Covid-19 on productivity in the United Kingdom using data derived from a large monthly firm panel survey. Our estimates suggest that Covid-19 will reduce TFP in the private sector by up to 5% in 2020 Q4, falling back to a 1% reduction in the medium term. Firms anticipate a large reduction in ‘within-firm’ productivity, primarily because measures to contain Covid-19 are expected to increase intermediate costs. The negative ‘within-firm’ effect is partially offset by a positive ‘between-firm’ effect as low productivity sectors, and the least productive firms among them, are disproportionately affected by Covid-19 and consequently make a smaller contribution to the economy. In the longer run, productivity growth is likely to be reduced by diminished R&D expenditure and diverted senior management time spent on dealing with the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | covid-19; pandemic; productivity |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcfc:2020/13&r= |
| By: | P. G. J. Persoon; R. N. A. Bekkers; F. Alkemade |
| Abstract: | In the race to achieve climate goals, many governments and organizations are encouraging the regional development of Renewable Energy Technology (RET). The spatial dynamics and successful regional development of a technology partly depends on the characteristics of the knowledge base on which this technology builds, in particular the analyticity and cumulativeness of knowledge. In this study we systematically evaluate these knowledge base characteristics for a set of 13 different RETs. We find that, while several RETs (photovoltaics, fuel-cells, energy storage) have a highly analytic knowledge base and develop more widespread, there are also important RETs (wind turbines, solar thermal, geothermal and hydro energy) for which the knowledge base is less analytic and which develop less widespread. Likewise, the technological cumulativeness tends to be lower for the former than for the latter group. This calls for regional policies to be specific for different RETs, taking for a given RET into account both the type of knowledge it builds on as well as the local presence of this knowledge. |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2106.10474&r= |