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on Innovation |
| By: | Davide Antonioli (University of Ferrara); Alberto Marzucchi (Gran Sasso Science Institute); Francesco Rentocchini (European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Seville, Spain; Department of Economics Management and Quantitative Methods (DEMM), University of Milan); Simone Vannuccini (Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | We exploit firm-level data on robot adoption and use an event-study approach to study the unexplored relationship between robotisation and innovation. Instead of an enabling effect, we find a negative association between robot adoption and the probability to introduce product innovations, as well as their number; the results emerge using different proxy of product innovation. However, large-scale investments in mechanisation cancel-out the negative effect and show a positive association with R&D expenditure. We rationalise and interpret the findings suggesting that a piecewise substitutive relationship exists between process and product innovation. Large investments relax the product-process trade-off, as substantial R&D investments to accrue absorptive capacity are mobilised; as a result, they make less binding the allocation dilemma between implementing robot technology and designing and trialling new products. Finally, we discuss whether industrial robots studied here and in the literature feature enabling capabilities at all. The study has important implications for our understanding of the role of robots for firms operations and strategies, as well as for policy design. |
| Keywords: | robots, automation, product innovation, absorptive capacity, Spain |
| JEL: | O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:21&r= |
| By: | Kleiner-Schaefer, Timo; Schaefer, Kerstin J. |
| Abstract: | University-industry collaborations (UICs) are one of the main sources of external knowledge and technologies for industrial firms, particularly in the context of emerging markets (EMs) and firm development. It is thus highly relevant to identify potential barriers internal to the firm as well as in the regional innovation system that might prevent firms from using UICs for innovation, in particular in an EM context. In order to address this issue, we conduct a firm-level study of the R&D-related segment of the manufacturing industry in Istanbul. Logistic regression analysis is used to test the effect of potential barriers on using UICs for innovative activities. With this approach, we are able to identify barriers that prevent innovation-related UICs and thus form a bottleneck to collaborations in the first place. Our findings show that lack of information about UIC opportunities as well as lack of financial support for UICs are the most relevant barriers that inhibit firms’ usage of UICs for innovation. This firm-level evidence points out the importance of university technology transfer offices in regional innovation systems and for fruitful UICs. We further find that administrative barriers have no significant effect, while barriers related to trust and skill matching with scientific partners even have a reverse effect to what we would have expected from the literature. This finding might point towards an effect of perceived versus deterring barriers that has been observed in innovation studies before and might be relevant for studying UICs as well. |
| Keywords: | barrier; emerging market; innovation; research and development; Turkey; university–industry collaboration |
| JEL: | O30 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2022–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113840&r= |
| By: | Griffith, Rachel; Van Reenen, John |
| Abstract: | We examine the economic analysis of the relationship between innovation and product market competition. First, we give a brief tour of the intellectual history of the area. Second, we examine how the Aghion-Howitt framework has influenced the development of the literature theoretically and (especially) empirically, with an emphasis on the "inverted U": the idea that innovation rises and then eventually falls as the intensity of competition increases. Thirdly, we look at recent applications and development of the framework in the areas of competition policy, international trade and structural Industrial Organization. |
| Keywords: | words; competition; innovation; creative destruction; ES/M010147/1; Programme On Innovation and Diffusion |
| JEL: | O31 L13 O32 B20 L40 |
| Date: | 2021–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113816&r= |
| By: | Hiroyasu Inoue; Kentaro Nakajima; Tetsuji Okazaki; Yukiko U. Saito |
| Abstract: | This study empirically investigates the role of face-to-face contact in innovation, by exploiting the Spanish flu pandemic in Japan from 1918 to 1921, which prohibitively increased the cost of face-to-face contact between inventors. By using unique patent bibliographic data for this period, we estimate the pandemics impact on innovation for technologies which requires intensive face-to-face communication for invention. Specifically, we define the patent technology classes with the large fraction of collaborative patents before the pandemic as collaboration intensive technology that is considered to require intensive face-to-face communication for invention. Then, we estimate the impact of pandemic on the invention of collaboration intensive technology by Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach. The estimation results show that during the pandemic, patent applications for collaboration intensive technology significantly decreased, and did not fully recover even after the pandemic ended. We also find that the negative impact is driven by a decrease in new entries into patent applications, that is, patent applications by the inventors who applied for patents for the firrst time. We further find that productive inventors were experienced co-inventions during their early careers. These results suggest that the decrease in face-to-face contacts with colleagues and seniors in the preliminary stages of inventors careers reduced the opportunity to nurture new inventors. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Face-to-face communication; Idea exchange JEL Codes: R11 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:22-007e&r= |
| By: | Claude Diebolt (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Karine Pellier (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the structural and spatial dynamics of patents in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The time series are extracted from international, comparative and historical databases on the long-term evolution of patents in 40 countries from the 17th century to 1945 and in more than 150 countries from 1945 to present (Diebolt and Pellier 2010). We have found strong evidence of infrequent large shocks resulting essentially from the major economic and political events formed by the two World Wars in the 20th century. Our results question the autonomous process, i.e. the internal dynamic of the patent systems. Wars seem to drive innovation and, finally, the very process of economic growth. We further investigated the role of innovation in economic growth through a causality analysis between patents and GDP per capita. Our major findings support the assumption that the accumulation of innovations was a driving force only for France, the United Kingdom and the United States during the post-World War II period. |
| Keywords: | Comparisons in time and space,Outliers,Causality,Patents,Shock analysis,Cliometrics,Database |
| Date: | 2022–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02929514&r= |
| By: | Guillard, Charlotte; Martin, Ralf; Thomas, Catherine; Verhoeven, Dennis |
| Abstract: | Research and development is underprovided whenever it creates knowledge spillovers that drive a wedge between its total and private economic returns. Heterogeneity in the intensity of this market failure across technological areas provides an argument to vertically target public support for R&D. This paper examines potential welfare gains of such vertical industrial policy for innovation. It develops measures of private and spillover value of patented innovations using global data on patents and their citations. Our new method identifies a large number 'Hidden Giants' - i.e. innovations scoring higher on our new spillover measure than on the traditional forward citation count measure - which are shown to be particularly prevalent among patents applied for by universities. The estimated distributions of private values by technology area are then used to parameterize a structural model of innovation. The model permits estimation of the marginal returns to technology-area-specific subsidies that reduce innovators' R&D costs. Marginal returns are high when knowledge spillovers in the technology area are valuable, when private innovation costs are low, and when private values in a technology sector are densely distributed around the private cost. The results show large variation in the marginal returns to subsidy and suggest that targeted industrial policy would have helped mitigate underprovision of R&D over the time period studied. Variation in the extent to which knowledge spillovers are internalized within countries also makes a compelling case for supranational policy coordination, especially among smaller countries. |
| Keywords: | research and development; patented innovations; decoupling; targeted industrial policy |
| JEL: | R14 J01 J1 |
| Date: | 2021–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113832&r= |
| By: | MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki; IKEUCHI Kenta; KWON Seokbeom |
| Abstract: | National universities in Japan, which used to be a part of the government, became independent agencies in April 2004. This institutional reform allows patent applications and ownership by each national university (agency) and the number of university patents has increased significantly since then. Active patenting activity at universities could facilitate commercialization of academic outcomes by licensing such outcomes to industry or university startups built on academic patents. However, there may also be negative aspects to university ownership of patents, in the form of obstacles to industrial innovation, and it is argued that academic activities are biased toward application-oriented research, as compared to basic science. This paper addresses the impact of national university ownership of patents on the quantity and quality of university patents. Concretely, we have constructed researcher-level patent data with detail information on affiliation and a DID model is applied to see the change of patent characteristics of national university researchers after 2004. It is found that not only did the numbers of national university patents increase, but the quality, measured by forward citation counts, has improved. The increase in forward citations to national university patents mainly comes from firm citations, so it can be said that the national university reform in 2004 has achieved its objective in terms of increasing the social contributions of academic research. |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:22017&r= |
| By: | Bloom, Nicholas; Hassan, Tarek Alexander; Kalyani, Aakash; Lerner, Josh; Tahoun, Ahmed |
| 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. |
| Keywords: | disruptive technologies; firms; labor markets |
| JEL: | R14 J01 J1 |
| Date: | 2021–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113870&r= |
| By: | Aleksandra Parteka (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland); Aleksandra Kordalska (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse the effects of technological innovation in the artificial intelligence (AI) domain on productivity. We embed the recently released data on patents and publications related to AI into an augmented panel model of productivity growth, estimated for OECD countries, and compared to a non-OECD sample. Our instrumental variables' estimates, accounting for AI endogeneity, provide evidence in favour of the modern (AI) productivity paradox. We show that the development of AI technologies remains a niche innovation phenomenon with a negligible role in the officially recorded productivity growth process. This general result, i.e. the lack of a strong relationship between AI and productivity growth, is robust to changes in the country sample, in the way we quantify labour productivity or the creation of AI technology, in the specification of the empirical model (control variables) or in estimation methods. |
| Keywords: | technological innovation, productivity paradox, productivity growth, artificial intelligence, patents |
| JEL: | O33 O47 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gdk:wpaper:67&r= |
| By: | Aghion, Philippe; Bergeaud, Antonin; Lequien, Matthieu; Melitz, Marc J.; Zuber, Thomas |
| Abstract: | We decompose the "China shock" into two components that induce different adjustments for firms exposed to Chinese exports: a horizontal shock affecting firms selling goods that compete with similar imported Chinese goods, and a vertical shock affecting firms using inputs similar to the imported Chinese goods. Combining French accounting, customs, and patent information at the firm-level, we show that the horizontal shock is detrimental to firms' sales, employment and innovation. Moreover, this negative impact is concentrated on low-productivity firms. By contrast, we find a positive effect - although often not significant - of the vertical shock on firms' sales, employment and innovation. |
| Keywords: | competition shock; patent; firms; import |
| JEL: | F14 O19 O31 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2021–08–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113915&r= |
| By: | Melitz, Marc J.; Redding, Stephen J. |
| Abstract: | Two central insights from the Schumpeterian approach to innovation and growth are that the pace of innovation is endogenously determined by the expectation of future profits and that growth is inherently a process of creative destruction. As international trade is a key determinant of firm profitability and survival, it is natural to expect it to play a key role in shaping both incentives to innovate and the rate of creative destruction. In this paper, we review the theoretical and empirical literature on trade and innovation. We highlight four key mechanisms through which international trade affects endogenous innovation and growth:(i) market size; (ii) competition; (iii) comparative advantage; (iv) knowledge spillovers. Each of these mechanisms offers a potential source of dynamic welfare gains in addition to the static welfare gains from trade from conventional trade theory. Recent research has suggested that these dynamic welfare gains from trade can be substantial relative to their static counterparts. Discriminating between alternative mechanisms for these dynamic welfare gains and strengthening the evidence on their quantitative magnitude remain exciting areas of ongoing research. |
| Keywords: | innovation; growth; international trade |
| JEL: | F10 F43 O30 O40 |
| Date: | 2021–06–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113930&r= |
| By: | Saverio Romeo (Center for Innovation Management, Birkbeck University of London, UK); Helen Lawton Smith (Department of Management, Birkbeck University of London, UK); Erran Carmel (ogod School of Business, American University, Washington DC); John Slater |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:img:wpaper:54&r= |
| By: | Bronsoler, Ari; Doyle, Joseph; Van Reenen, John |
| Abstract: | Adoption of health information and communication technologies ('HICT') has surged over the past two decades. We survey the medical and economic literature on HICT adoption and its impact on clinical outcomes, productivity and labor. We find that HICT improves clinical outcomes and lowers healthcare costs, but (i) the effects are modest so far, (ii) it takes time for these effects to materialize, and (iii) there is much variation in the impact. More evidence on the causal effects of HICT on productivity is needed to guide further adoption. There is little econometric work directly investigating the impact of HICT on labor, but what there is suggests no substantial negative effects on employment and earnings. Overall, while healthcare is 'exceptional' in many ways, we are struck by the similarities to the wider findings on ICT and productivity stressing the importance of complementary factors (e.g. management and skills) in determining HICT impacts. |
| Keywords: | healthcare; technology; productivity; jobs; Programme On Innovation and Diffusion (POID) |
| JEL: | R14 J01 J1 |
| Date: | 2021–09–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113859&r= |