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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2006‒12‒22
seven papers chosen by Emanuele Canegrati Catholic University of the Sacred Heart |
| By: | Hoisl, Karin |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the causality between inventor productivity and inventor mobility. The results show that the level of education has no influence on inventor productivity. Making use of external sources of knowledge, on the contrary, has a significant effect on productivity. Finally, firm size has a positive impact on productivity. Firm size also influences inventor mobility, although negatively. Whereas existing research implicitly assumes causality to point in one direction, this study ex-ante allows for a simultaneous relationship. To deal with the expected endogeneity problem, instrumental variables techniques will be employed. Results show that mobile inventors are more than four times as productive as non-movers. Whereas mobility increases productivity, an increase in productivity decreases the number of moves. |
| Keywords: | Inventor; Productivity; Mobility; Match Quality; Patent |
| JEL: | O34 O32 J M54 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:msmdpa:1260&r=knm |
| By: | Peter J. Kuhn; Carol McAusland |
| Abstract: | We consider the welfare effects of the emigration of workers who produce a public good (knowledge). We distinguish between the knowledge diversion and knowledge creation effects of such emigration, and show that the remaining residents of a country can gain from emigration, even when tastes for knowledge goods exhibit a kind of 'home bias'. In contrast to existing models of beneficial brain drain (BBD), our results do not require agglomeration economies, education-related externalities, remittances, return migration, or an emigration 'lottery'. Instead, they are driven purely by the public nature of knowledge goods, combined with differences in market size that induce greater knowledge creation by emigrants abroad than at home. BBD is even more likely in the presence of weak sending-country intellectual property rights (IPRs), or when source country IPR policy is endogenized. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12761&r=knm |
| By: | Hoisl, Karin |
| Abstract: | Although labor mobility has been recognized as a key mechanism to transfer tacit knowledge, prior research on inventors has so far neglected to address the question of the consequence of a move on inventive performance. This paper improves on the current R&D literature by presenting a quasi-experimental approach to explore the effect of a specific move of an inventor on his performance. The quasi-experiment provides a favorable setting to test this relationship since it allows interpreting changes of inventive performance causal to a particular move. Results reveal that in the post-move period inventors produce more patentable innovations that are characterized by a higher grant rate and by higher value. However, the gains from movement seem to dissipate over time. Data for the analysis was derived from a survey of German inventors (N = 3,049). |
| Keywords: | Inventor; Productivity; Mobility; Quasi Experiment; Patent |
| JEL: | O34 O32 J M54 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:msmdpa:1263&r=knm |
| By: | Rachel Ngai; Roberto M. Samaniego |
| Abstract: | We develop a multi-sector general equilibrium model in which productivity growth is drivenby the production of sector-specific knowledge. In the model, we find that long rundifferences in total factor productivity growth across sectors are independent of theparameters of the knowledge production function except for one, which we term the fertilityof knowledge. Differences in R&D intensity are also independent of most other parameters.The fertility of knowledge in the capital sector is central to the growth properties of the modeleconomy. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous technical change, multisector growth, fertility of knowledge, totalfactor productivity, R&D intensity, investment-specific technical change |
| JEL: | D24 D92 O31 O41 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0762&r=knm |
| By: | P Boone; Zhaoguo Zhan |
| Abstract: | Why do over 20% of children die in some poor countries, while in others only 2% die? Weexamine this question using survey data covering 278,000 children in 45 low-income countries.We find that parents' education and a mother's propensity to seek out modern healthcare areempirically important when explaining child survival, while the prevalence of common diseases,along with infrastructure such as improved water and sanitation, are not. Using a GINIcoefficient we construct for treatment services, we find that public and private health systems are"equally unequal", that is, both tend to favor children in relatively well-off households, andneither appears superior at improving outcomes in very poor communities. These facts contrastwith a common view that a much-expanded public health sector is necessary to reduce childmortality. Instead, we believe the empirical evidence points to the essential role of parents asadvocates for their child's health. If we can provide better health knowledge and generaleducation to parents, a private healthcare sector can arise to meet demand. We provide evidencethat this alternative route to low mortality is indeed a reason behind the current success of manycountries with low child mortality, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Egypt, and the Indian state ofKerala. Finally, we calculate a realistic package of interventions that target education, healthknowledge and treatment seeking could reduce child mortality by 32%. |
| JEL: | I00 I1 I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0751&r=knm |
| By: | Nick Bloom; Tobias Kretschmer; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | Do "Anglo-Saxon" management practices generate higher productivity only at the expense of lousywork-life balance (WLB) for workers? Many critics of "neo-libéralisme sauvage" have argued thatincreased competition from globalisation is damaging employees' quality of life. Others have arguedthe opposite that improving work-life balance is actually a competitive tool that companies can useto raise productivity. We try to shed some empirical light on these issues using an innovative surveytool to collect new data on management and work-life balance practices from 732 medium sizedmanufacturing firms in the US, France, Germany and the UK. First, we show that our measure ofwork-life balance is a useful summary of a range of policies in the firm - family-friendly policies,flexible working, shorter hours, more holidays, subsidised childcare, etc. We show that this worklifebalance measure is significantly associated with better management. Firms in environments thatare more competitive and/or who are more productive, however, do not have significantly worsework-life balance for their workers. These findings are inconsistent with the view that competition,globalisation and "Anglo-Saxon" management practices are intrinsically bad for the work-lifebalance of workers. On the other hand, neither are these findings supportive of the optimistic "winwin"view that work-life balance improves productivity in its own right. Rather we find support for a"hybrid" theory that work-life balance is a choice for managers that is compatible with low or highproductivity. |
| Keywords: | Work-Life Balance, Management Practices, Productivity, family-friendly workplaces, competition |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:sp16&r=knm |
| By: | Francesco Caselli; Nicola Gennaioli |
| Abstract: | The most striking difference in corporate-governance arrangements between rich and poorcountries is that the latter rely much more heavily on the dynastic family firm, whereownership and control are passed on from one generation to the other. We argue that if theheir to the family firm has no talent for managerial decision making, dynastic management isa failure of meritocracy that reduces a firm's Total Factor Productivity. We present a simplemodel that studies the macreconomic causes and consequences of dynastic management. Inour model, the incidence of dynastic management depends, among other factors, on theimperfections of contractual enforcement. A plausible calibration suggests that, via dynasticmanagement, poor contract enforcement may be a substantial contributor to observed crosscountrydifferences in aggregate Total Factor Productivity. |
| Keywords: | Meritocracy, Family firms, Financial Development, TFP |
| JEL: | E1 E2 G1 G3 O1 O4 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0741&r=knm |