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on Innovation |
| By: | Krieger, Bastian; Prüfer, Malte; Strecke, Linus |
| Abstract: | Public procurement is widely regarded as an important instrument to foster innovation. We examine how additional award criteria beyond price relate to firms' realized innovation performance by combining representative firm-level data from the German Innovation Survey with official tender-level data from Tenders Electronic Daily and estimating two-way fixed effects models. The results suggest that winning price-based tenders is associated with lower product and service innovation and higher turnover from established products and services, while criteria-based procurement shows an inverse U-shaped relationship between the average length of criteria lists in won tenders and firms' innovation outcomes. Overall, the findings indicate that the innovation effects of public procurement depend not only on whether additional award criteria are used, but also on how extensively they are applied. |
| Keywords: | Public procurement, Firm innovation, Demand side |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O38 H57 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:341408 |
| By: | Christopher R. Esposito |
| Abstract: | Like physical products, new technologies are developed using globally sourced inputs. Yet while the supply chains behind physical goods are well understood, we know far less about the international supply chain of scientific knowledge that powers U.S. innovation, or how vulnerable it may be to disruption. Here, I uncover this supply chain by tracing multi-generational citation paths connecting NSF-funded research to downstream patents, and stress-test it by simulating barriers to scientific knowledge flows across the U.S. border. The U.S. knowledge supply chain extends globally, and frictions impeding the movement of ideas across the U.S. border reduce its connectivity, extend its length, and lower innovation productivity. These impacts extend to technology areas deemed critical to national priorities by U.S. Congress, including Semiconductors, Quantum Science, and AI. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.30435 |
| By: | Lepers, Robin; Krieger, Bastian; Pellens, Maikel; Prüfer, Malte |
| Abstract: | Policy makers increasingly recognize circular public procurement as a demand-pull instrument for stimulating the transition to a circular economy. However, empirical studies on circular public procurement have been hampered by a fundamental measurement challenge, as public procurement databases do not contain structured ways of identifying circular projects. This paper presents the first application of an LLM-based semantic similarity approach to identify circular procurement at scale. Adapting a bibliometric text-embedding approach from circular economy research, we show its application in comparing tender descriptions to a reference corpus of circular economy scientific abstracts, generating circularity scores for each award. We then apply the identified circular public procurement awards in an empirical study of firm-level adoption of circular economy innovation, matching the classified tenders to German data from the Community Innovation Survey. The results show that firms winning circular procurement are more likely to introduce circular economy innovation after three to five years, while no significant results are found at shorter or longer time horizons. Overall, this paper demonstrates the potential of using LLMs to identify circular public procurement and study its effectiveness in enabling the circular transition. |
| Keywords: | Circular economy, Innovation, Circular public procurement |
| JEL: | H57 O38 Q55 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:341409 |
| By: | Alam, Afroza; Diegmann, André |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new causal evidence on how patent allowances affect firms and their employees based on quasi-random assignment of patent applications to examiners. Exploiting employer-employee records with newly linked German firm data and web-scraped patent documents, we show that patent-induced shocks reduce firm exit, improve productivity, and increase wages, with rent-sharing elasticities between 0.10 and 0.21. Wage gains are broadly observed across occupational tasks, with high heterogeneity: managers benefit disproportionately in publicly traded firms, whereas broader wage increases accrue to workers in non-traded firms. Our findings highlight the role of institutional features and firm organization in shaping how rents are shared. |
| Keywords: | firm performance, innovation, rent sharing, worker compensation |
| JEL: | D22 J31 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:341391 |
| By: | Francesco Crespi; Nicolò Geri; Dario Guarascio; Enrico Marvasi |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between technological capabilities, import dependency, and environmental policies, focusing on the lithium-ion battery supply chain, a critical sector for the net-zero transition. First, we develop an original analytical framework that integrates two recent streams of literature, one focusing on the acceleration of the green transition and the other on structural dependencies and technological sovereignty, to examine potential trade-offs between these objectives. Second, we develop a strategic intelligence analysis of the lithium-ion battery supply chain, allowing us to quantify import dependencies and technological capacity gaps at a highly granular product and technology level. Third, we examine how technological capabilities influence import dependency, showing under what conditions technological upgrading strengthens competitive positions and mitigates dependency. Finally, we analyse how environmental policy stringency relates to import dependency. Our findings suggest that technological upgrading can reduce dependencies without compromising environmental goals, so that the presumed trade-off between the net-zero transition and structural dependencies does not necessarily hold. In contrast, a well-designed policy mix, aligning environmental objectives with targeted innovation and industrial policies, can enhance both resilience and the acceleration towards the net-zero transition. |
| Keywords: | strategic dependencies, net-zero transition, lithium-ion batteries, import dependency, technological capabilities, environmental policy stringency |
| JEL: | F14 F18 O13 O33 Q55 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ter:wpaper:00199 |
| By: | Tamilina, Larysa; Akaliyski, Plamen |
| Abstract: | Innovation constitutes a key driver of long-term economic and societal prosperity, motivating extensive research on its underlying determinants. Although culture is acknowledged as being of utmost importance, it has predominantly been examined in isolation from institutional contexts. This study explores how individualist and collectivist cultures contribute to cross-national differences in innovation performance, and how these cultural effects interact with formal institutions. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis is used on data from 80 countries to identify multiple configurations of cultural and institutional conditions associated with high and low innovation output. Our empirical findings show that individualism and robust formal institutions independently function as necessary and sufficient conditions for high innovation performance; nevertheless, their simultaneous presence is essential for maximizing innovation output. In contrast, the absence of individualism alone emerges as sufficient to severely constrain innovation. We use these asymmetric results to propose a novel typology of national innovation regimes. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, individualism-collectivism, formal institutions, national culture, fsQCA. |
| JEL: | C10 O3 |
| Date: | 2026–01–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129486 |
| By: | Dario Guarascio; Mario Pianta |
| Abstract: | The article examines the evolution of the current technological paradigm, based on digital technologies, considering the interaction between civilian and military trajectories, with a focus on the US case. Building on an original political economy framework, the activities of corporations and the industrial and technology policies of the US government are examined. The evolution of digital technologies and the rise of major US corporations, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, is investigated, showing that their platform business model is characterised by monopoly power, management of Big Data and major capabilities of control, surveillance and targeting. A civilian trajectory, with large commercial markets and a novel reach in several areas of social activities, has dominated the rise of digital technologies. Its key characteristics, however, have become of major interest for military priorities. The analysis of recent US industrial and technology policies for the military shows that they have expanded the involvement of US digital corporations in arms and security programmes, developed large defense R&D projects in digital areas, and shaped a new convergence between civilian and military trajectories. The outcome we are facing is therefore the emergence of a digital-military-industrial complex, a major and problematic novelty in a digital age that had grown out of a civilian trajectory. |
| Keywords: | digital technologies, technological trajectories, military programs |
| JEL: | O30 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ter:wpaper:00185 |