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on Innovation |
| By: | Edquist, Charles (CIRCLE, Lund University); Laatsit, Mart (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | ‘The system of innovation approach’ has been around in innovation research for more than three decades. In this paper, we ask whether the time has come to try to develop a general theory of innovation. There is now a considerable literature addressing what happens in the innovation systems (and not only which elements and components they include). This literature places the focus on the causes of innovations in terms of functions and activities in the systems. Analysing this literature, including the several lists of activities and functions, is the focus in this paper. We aim to find out whether these lists are useful for developing a general theory of innovation. We argue that we, as a ‘collective research community’, have already tried to do this, and that we have made some progress. We will indicate how this work can continue to develop the systems of innovation ‘approach’ into a ‘theory’. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; System of innovation; Innovation policy; Holistic innovation policy; Linear view; Research Policy |
| JEL: | O30 O38 O49 O52 |
| Date: | 2022–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2022_007&r= |
| By: | Svetlana Klessova (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Sebastian Engell (TU - Technische Universität Dortmund [Dortmund]); Catherine Thomas (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | The assessment of the advancement of technological innovations at their development stage is a difficult task, but important to judge on the performance of innovation projects. Assessments have so far been made by assessing technical characteristics, subjectively, or by counting patents. This paper proposes an approach to assess the advancement of market-upstream innovations directly and objectively, through the advancement of their technological maturity. On this basis, also the innovation performance of larger projects that were put in place to progress one or several innovations, can be assessed. The paper presents an exploratory qualitative multi-case study of 54 innovative technologies at different maturity levels, that were developed in 5 market-upstream large technological research and innovation projects with mostly engineering and IT dimensions, funded by the European Union's Research and Innovation Programmes under its sub-programme "Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies". From extensive documentation and data from interviews, a refined technology readiness scale and a scoring method that reflects the increase in the required efforts to advance the maturity of the innovations is developed. The findings provide groundwork for future research on market-upstream innovation and how the innovation performance of projects can be measured at the early stages of the innovation process. |
| Keywords: | Innovation,Innovative technologies,Market-upstream,Maturation,R&D,Technology readiness levels,Project,Innovation performance |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03636260&r= |
| By: | Püttmann, Vitus (Leibniz University of Hannover); Thomsen, Stephan L. (Leibniz University of Hannover) |
| Abstract: | In line with the growing relevance of higher education and science for societal development and innovation processes, there has been a steady increase in the salience of interrelations with the extra-academic environment in the context of academics' work. Insights into the status of this so-called third mission in the academic profession remain fragmented, however. We use the concept of an academic identity as an analytical lens to investigate this status empirically based on an original survey among 4,284 professors in Germany across the full range of academic disciplines. The results show that the third mission is firmly included in the academic identities of many, but not all, professors and that the forms of inclusion differ. Specifically, we are able to identify four types of identities: (1) the dedicated type who embraces the third mission as a whole; (2) the idealistic type who emphasizes responsibility toward society and sociopolitical matters; (3) the pragmatic type who emphasizes material work-related and personal benefits; and (4) the reserved type, characterized by an overall distanced stance. We furthermore find evidence of a strong impact of disciplinary communities on the specific types of identities that academics develop, whereas the organizational context and the cohorts to which academics belong appear less relevant. In addition, there are indications that individual characteristics shape the identity formation process. Last, there are strong and differential associations between academics' identities and their actual third mission engagement. Overall, it appears that the third mission—at least if its multifaceted nature is considered—is a relevant area of activity for a significant share of the academic profession. |
| Keywords: | third mission, knowledge transfer, continuing education, societal engagement, academic profession, academic identity, professor |
| JEL: | I23 O35 O36 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15280&r= |
| By: | Philippe Larrue; Orestas Strauka |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the evolution of the funding, governance and policy context of research and technology organisations (RTOs) over the last ten years, and the implications of these changes on their ability to achieve their mission. It shows that their contribution to solving societal challenges is now tightly intertwined with their historical mission of supporting innovation in industry and public administrations. Delivering on this increasingly demanding mission in evolving and sometimes unstable funding frameworks has led them to experiment with new internal organisational structures, business models and partnerships. The paper also draws implications for policy makers who play a key role in setting the environment in which RTOs operate and that determines in part their ability to deliver on the twin imperatives of strengthening economic competitiveness and tackling societal challenges. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Science and technology, Societal challenges |
| JEL: | O14 O25 O38 Q55 |
| Date: | 2022–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaac:129-en&r= |
| By: | Mathias Dewatripont |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the subsequent steps of the covid vaccine experience in the European Union. It stresses the features of the US innovation ecosystem which were responsible for its success. It argues that the European Union did reasonably well in procuring vaccines and logistically organizing their delivery but that vaccine hesitancy proved to be a key constraint. The paper discusses European countries’ vaccination strategies and their plusses and minusses. Finally, it draws some lessons for dealing with the tradeoff between drug and vaccine innovation and affordability, an issue whose importance is bound to grow with promising but costly scientific advances. |
| Keywords: | vaccine innovation, covid-19, innovation ecosystem, vaccine hesitancy, drug prices, European health policy |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/343280&r= |
| By: | Yang Li; Frank Neffke |
| Abstract: | A large body of research has documented that the size and growth of an industry in a city or region depends on the local size of related industries. However, there is no consensus on how to best measure, either the relatedness between industries, or how well a particular industry fits a local economy as a whole. In this paper, we perform a structured search over tens of thousands of specifications to identify optimal – in terms of out-of-sample predictions – ways to construct these quantities, using a dataset that allows us to derive relatedness from co-occurrence patterns of industries in establishments, firms, regions and countries. We find that these di |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2208&r= |
| By: | Saroj Dhital (Economics and Business Department, Southwestern University); Pedro Gomis-Porqueras (School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia); Joseph H. Haslag (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia) |
| Abstract: | Do financial innovations benefit or harm expected welfare? For innovations that provide greater access to banks, researchers have argued that lower transaction costs and better project assessments result in expected welfare gains. Others, however, have shown that with incomplete markets, financial innovations result in expected welfare losses. In this paper, we examine the impacts of financial innovations in economies with incomplete markets and limited commitment. We show that the results critically depend on whether assets are priced fundamentally or not. When priced fundamentally, greater access does improve expected welfare, also resulting in greater consumption inequality. However, when assets carry a premium, there is an additional channel owing to limited commitment. Because of a more severe limited commitment problem, collateral is necessary. A fixed quantity of pledgeable assets are spread across a larger measure of depositors, resulting in less consumption for those with access to banks and consumption inequality decreases. Second, we consider a financial innovation that increases the pledegeability of one type of bank collateral. We also show that the results critically depend on whether assets are priced fundamentally or not. When assets are priced fundamentally, this type of financial innovation does not change welfare nor consumption inequality. In contrast, when assets carry a premium, better collateral results in more consumption for depositors with access to the more sophisticated payment option. We extend our model economy to consider an endogenous decision to access checkable deposits. This allows us to examine the effects of changes in the distribution of costs that are important to the choice of participating in observing buyers’ deposit or not. Third, our analysis demonstrates that collateral in a limited commitment framework provides a mechanism through which financial innovation can increase or decrease the impact that financial innovations have on welfare and inequality. |
| Keywords: | welfare, financial innovation, financial access, inequality |
| JEL: | E40 E61 E62 H21 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:2022&r= |
| By: | Jan De Loecker; Tim Obermeier; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | In the last few decades, dramatic changes have been documented in the US business landscape. These include rising productivity and pay dispersion between firms, higher aggregate markups (of price over variable costs), growing dominance of big companies ("superstar firms"), a fall in the labour share of GDP and a decline in business dynamism. We review the existing literature and present a new analysis using comprehensive firm level panel data, to show that qualitatively, these trends are also apparent in the UK. This similarity suggests that common trends in technology (or globalisation) have been the driving force behind these changes, rather than country-specific institutions (such as weaker US antitrust enforcement). Since (at least) the mid-1990s, there has been a large increase in UK firm-level inequality (especially in the upper tails) of productivity, wages, markups, and labour shares. Of course, inequality between firms is much less of a concern than inequality between people. However, it can signal economic problems, such as a slowdown in the diffusion of ideas between leading and laggard firms and can foster higher wage inequality. Indeed, there has been little aggregate UK productivity growth since the Global Financial Crisis, and this has been a serious drag on median and mean real wages. We suggest a simple theoretical framework for understanding some of these trends and quantitatively analyse why, despite increasing markups, the, the UK labour share has not fallen as sharply as that in the US. Finally, we suggest some policy options in response to these worrying trends, include modernising competition rules to deal with the growth of superstar firms and strengthening worker bargaining power. |
| Keywords: | firms inequality, financial crisis |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1838&r= |
| By: | Joshua S. Gans |
| Abstract: | Economists have often viewed the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) as a standard process innovation where we expect that efficiency will drive adoption in competitive markets. This paper models AI based on recent advances in machine learning that allow firms to engage in better prediction. Using prediction of demand, it is demonstrated that AI adoption is a complement to variable inputs whose levels are directly altered by predictions and use is economised by them (that is, labour). It is shown that, in a competitive market, this increases the short-run elasticity of supply and may or may not increase average equilibrium prices. There are generically externalities in adoption with this reducing the profits of non-adoptees when variable inputs are important and increasing them otherwise. Thus, AI does not operate as a standard process innovation and its adoption may confer positive externalities on non-adopting firms. In the long-run, AI adoption is shown to generally lower prices and raise consumer surplus in competitive markets. |
| JEL: | D21 D41 D81 O31 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29996&r= |
| By: | James J. Heckman; Jin Zhou |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies in the economics of education, the measurement of skill gaps across demographic groups, and the impacts of interventions on skill formation rely on psychometrically validated test scores that record the proportion of items correctly answered. Test scores are sometimes taken as measures of an invariant scale of human capital that can be compared over time and people. We show that for a prototypical test, invariance is violated. We use an unusually rich data set from an early childhood intervention program that measures knowledge of narrowly defined skills on essentially equivalent subsets of tasks. We examine if conventional, broadly-defined measures of skill are the same across people who are comparable on detailed knowledge measures. We reject the hypothesis of aggregate scale invariance and call into question the uncritical use of test scores in research on education and on skill formation. We compare different measures of skill and ability and reject the hypothesis of valid aggregate measures of skill. |
| JEL: | C81 I21 J71 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29990&r= |
| By: | Eder, Andreas; Koller, Wolfgang; Mahlberg, Bernhard |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the contribution of industrial robots to labor productivity growth and the process of economic convergence in 19 developed and 17 emerging countries in the period 1999 to 2019. To answer our research questions, we extend the non-parametric production frontier framework by considering industrial robots as a separate production factor. Production frontiers and distances to the frontiers are estimated by Data Envelopment Analysis, a method based on linear programming models. Considerable contributions of robotization to labor productivity growth are mainly found in emerging countries and are rather modest in most developed countries. In the period 2009 to 2019 robot capital deepening as a source of productivity growth has gained in importance in emerging countries but not in developed countries. Within the period 1999 to 2019 we find some evidence of i) unconditional β-convergence, ii) a reduction in the dispersion of productivity levels across economies (σ-convergence) and iii) a depolarization (shift from bimodal to unimodal distribution) of the labor productivity distribution. Non-robot physical capital deepening and robotization are the most important drivers of β-convergence. Robot capital deepening contributed to the depolarization of the labor productivity distribution and to σ-convergence. Though, the effect of robot capital deepening on the entire shift of the labor productivity distribution between 1999 and 2019 is modest and dominated by other growth factors such as technological change and non-robot physical capital deepening. |
| Keywords: | automation; robotization; decomposition; data envelopment analysis; emerging countries; developed countries |
| JEL: | E24 O33 O47 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113126&r= |