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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Erik Stam; David Audretsch; Joris Meijaard |
| Abstract: | Why should individuals that have exited their firm consider re-entering into entrepreneurship, i.e. become renascent entrepreneurs? According to the logic of economic models of firm dynamics there is no reason to re-enter into entrepreneurship following termination of a previous firm. In contrast, research on nascent entrepreneurship has shown the positive effect of entrepreneurial experience on planning a new firm start. Based on the empirical evidence from a database consisting of ex-entrepreneurs, this study shows that renascent entrepreneurship is a pervasive phenomenon in current society. Especially entrepreneurial human and social capital induce renascent entrepreneurship. In addition, the nature of the firm exit also affects the probability of renascent entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurial preferences, entrepreneurial skills, firm exit, renascent entrepreneurship, economics of entrepreneurship |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2006-06&r=tid |
| By: | Márcia Siqueira Rapini (IEL-FIEMG); Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque (Cedeplar-UFMG); Leandro Alves Silva (Cedeplar-UFMG); Sara Gonçalves Antunes de Souza (Unimontes); Hérica Morais Righi (Cedeplar-UFMG); Wellington Marcelo Silva da Cruz |
| Abstract: | Spots of interaction summarize the nature of partial connections (between science and technology) operating in the Brazilian system of innovation. A pilot study in Minas Gerais, Brazil, uses two new research tools (for immature NSIs) and presents a database with research groups located in universities and a database built upon an adapted version of the pioneering Yale and Carnegie Mellon Surveys. These complementary databases identify spots of interaction, indicating how economic sectors use specific science and engineering fields. This investigation identifies a dual role of universities in immature NSIs, as substitutes and/or complements firms R&D. |
| Keywords: | systems of innovation, underdevelopment, interactions between science and technology, surveys, universities |
| JEL: | O0 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td286&r=tid |
| By: | Robert M. Hunt |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a simple duopoly model in which investments in R&D and patents are inputs in the production of firm rents. Patents are necessary to appropriate the returns to the firm’s own R&D, but patents also create potential claims against the rents of rival firms. Analysis of the model reveals a general necessary condition for the existence of a positive correlation between the firm’s R&D intensity and the number of patents it obtains. When that condition is violated, changes in exogenous parameters that induce an increase in firms’ patenting can also induce a decline in R&D intensity. Such a negative relationship is more likely when (1) there is sufficient overlap in firms’ technologies so that each firm’s inventions are likely to infringe the patents of another firm, (2) firms are sufficiently R&D intensive, and (3) patents are cheap relative to both the cost of R&D and the value of final output. |
| Keywords: | Patents ; Research and development |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:06-6&r=tid |
| By: | Chandra Pankaj |
| Abstract: | Small producers face a variety of challenges - some related to markets and others related to capabilities. Inability to develop technological capabilities has often restricted small firms from growing large. In this paper, we present learning from three global networks , i.e., TAMA in Japan, Wenzhou in China and Rajkot in India, that have adopted a variety of mechanisms of coordination between small producers and has led to both capability enhancement and demand enhancement. We argue that the capability enhancement effects play as significant a role as demand enhancement effects in the growth of small firms. Coordination that allows firms to improve their capabilities enhances both productivity as well as innovative capabilities to develop new products and processes. The paper, with the help of these three case studies, presents a generic model for SME development that is based on acquiring distinctive capabilities and linkages with other small producers or other members of the supply chain. We propose distinctive determinants of a collaborative model for engaging SMEs in technological innovation over a period of time. These are : Focus of the Firm, Interactive Producers, Processing and Product Manufacturing, Innovation Investment, Markets, Market Makers (and market making processes), and Regulatory Support. |
| Date: | 2006–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2006-03-02&r=tid |
| By: | James Bergin (Queen's University); Dan Bernhardt (University of Illinois) |
| Abstract: | We study the dynamics of an industry subject to aggregate demand shocks where the productivity of a firm's technology evolves stochastically over time. Each period, each firm, given the aggregate demand shock, the productivity of its technology, and the distribution of technology productivities in the economy, (i) chooses whether to remain in the industry or to exit to sell its resources to an entrant; and (ii) an active firm chooses how much capital and labor to employ, and hence output to produce. To characterize the intertemporal evolution of the distribution of firms, we discuss in particular how exit decisions, aggregate output, profits and distributions of firm productivities vary, (a) across different demand realization paths; (b) along a demand history path, detailing the effects of continued good or bad market conditions; and (c) for different anticipated future market conditions. Sufficient conditions are provide for worse demand realizations to lead to increased exit of low-productivity firms and then to improved distributions of firms at all future dates and states. Finally, it is shown that a downturn in demand can raise welfare due to the impact on exit decisions. |
| Keywords: | stochastic heterogeneity, aggregate shocks, exit, thin markets, demand uncertainty |
| JEL: | E32 L16 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1043&r=tid |
| By: | De Cleyn S.; Braet J. |
| Abstract: | Protection of intellectual property has become an important topic in academic research. Since the concepts of academic spin-off and valorisation of academic research results gained influence in Europe, the academic culture and dissemination of research results is subject to a metamorphosis. This study aims to give a first insight in the ways and procedures used by Belgian Technology Transfer Offices (TTO’s) to protect the results of hard and often pioneering research work. The main topics addressed in this study concern the way of organising the TTO service within the university, the adopted policies and procedures, the method of prior art search and a indication of the cost structure through subventions and cost participation by departments and third parties. Analysis of the observed heterogeneity results in 4 archetypes during the evolution of a TTO. In a further stage, this study tries to discover similarities and differences between IP protection in Belgian universities and in commercial enterprises in innovating sectors and foreign universities. The analysis provides insight in the main differences between the academic and the commercial world in the matter of patent filing procedures and policies and IP protection. |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ant:wpaper:2006009&r=tid |
| By: | Mark Rogers |
| Abstract: | The UK`s business R&D (BERD) to GDP ratio is low compared to other leading economies, and the ratio has slowly declined over the 1990s. This paper uses data on large UK firms to analyse the link between R&D and productivity over the 1989-2000 period. Using a production function approach, and a sample of up to 719 firms, various different samples and estimators are used to assess the elasticity of, and rate of return to, R&D. The results indicate that UK returns to R&D are similar to returns in other leading economies. Furthermore, the returns to R&D have been relatively stable over the 1990s. There is no evidence to suggest that stock market listed firms, or firms with higher past profitability, have significantly different returns. Overall, the results suggest that the low BERD to GDP ratio in the UK is unlikely to be due to direct financial or human capital constraints (as these imply finding relatively high rates of return). Instead, the low BERD to GDP ratio appears to reflect low (perceived) opportunities by firms and the inability of firms to manage R&D to generate value. The paper provides some, tentative evidence, that high rates of competition in the science-based sector are associated with low returns to R&D. |
| Keywords: | R&D, Productivity |
| JEL: | L10 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:255&r=tid |
| By: | Spyros Arvanitis (Swiss Institute for Business Cycle Research (KOF), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH)); Heinz Hollenstein (Swiss Institute for Business Cycle Research (KOF), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH)) |
| Abstract: | Using the OLI paradigm as theoretical framework, we explain econometrically why a firm invests in foreign R&D (model A), and, if it does, which factors determine the level of foreign R&D expenditures (model B). It turns out that the pattern of explanation is quite similar for both types of decisions. In both cases, O- and I-advantages are the main drivers of foreign R&D, whereas L-disadvantages of the Swiss location do not play any role. A descriptive analysis of a series of motives of Swiss firms for performing R&D abroad shows that market-seeking is the most important motive. Knowledge-seeking and (human) resource-seeking are of intermediate importance as motives of foreign R&D, whereas efficiency-seeking objectives are hardly relevant. These results are fully in line with those of the econometric modelling. The findings of both approaches imply that foreign and domestic R&D are complements rather than substitutes. “Asset exploiting” is more prevalent as a strategy of foreign R&D than “asset augmenting”. |
| Keywords: | Foreign R&D, Determinants of foreign R&D, Motives of foreign R&D; OLI paradigm; Asset augmenting, Asset exploiting |
| JEL: | O30 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kof:wpskof:06-127&r=tid |
| By: | Thomas Brenner |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the frequency of observing a certain number of firms or employees in a region for a given industry. Various predictions for these frequencies are deduced from theoretical considerations. Then, the empirical distributions of 198 industries in Germany are analysed. It is found that different kinds of industries show quite different distributions. |
| Keywords: | industry study, spatial distribution, local industrial clusters. |
| JEL: | C12 L60 R12 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2005-16&r=tid |
| By: | Mangematin, V.; Rip, A.; Delemarle, A.; Robinson, D.K.R. |
| Abstract: | In the case of new technologies like nanotechnology, institutional entrepreneurs appear who have to act at different levels (organizational, regional, national) at the same time. We reconstruct, in some detail, the history of two cases, in Grenoble and in Twente/Netherlands. An intriguing finding is that institutional entrepreneurs build their environment before changing their institution. They first mobilize European support to convince local and national levels before actual cluster building occurs. Only later will there be reactions against any de-institutionalisation caused at the base location. The Dutch case shows another notable finding: when mobilizing support the entrepreneur will have to agree to further conditions, and then ends up in a different situation (a broad national consortium) than originally envisaged (the final cluster involved a collaboration of Twente with two other centres). In general, an institutional entrepreneur attempts to create momentum, and when this is achieved, he has to follow rather than lead it. |
| Keywords: | INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEUR; DEINSTITUTIONALISATION; CLUSTER; LOCATION; EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES; PROMISE; NANOTECHNOLOGY |
| JEL: | M13 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rea:gaelwp:200515&r=tid |
| By: | Avner Offer (All Souls College, Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Automobile depreciation rates and dealer markups in the United States and Britain during the 1950s and 1960s provide evidence on the effect of asymmetric information on market structures. Initial depreciation was not exceptional, and trade was not disabled. ‘Lemon’ effects were evident in some periods but not others. Depreciation and markups increased with mechanical and styling uncertainty. Adverse selection kicked in as cars aged: high selling costs caused dealers to withdraw from trading older cars. Despite their lower quality, British makes depreciated less, probably due to different novelty signals and longer styling cycles. |
| Date: | 2006–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_060&r=tid |