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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Nicoletta Corrocher (CESPRI - Bocconi University, Milan, Italy and NFH - University of Tromso, Tromso, Norway.); Lorenzo Zirulia (CESPRI - Bocconi University, Milan and University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at analyzing the characteristics and the determinants of innovation in the mobile communication service industry, by emphasising in particular the role of demand. In a Shumpeterian spirit, we argue that competition in this sector crucially depends upon innovation, and that, given the specific characteristics of the industry, firms' innovative strategies are strongly affected by demand. Our main point is that in a context of uncertainty, demand affects firms' innovative strategies in two ways: first, by providing information on users' behaviour and by increasing the capability of market segmentation; second, by providing invcentives to innovate. This argument is supported by an empirical analysis carried out on the basis of an original dataset including all the tariff plans offered in the history of the Italian market up to 2005. We find that both firms' installed base of customers and market saturation play a role in shaping firms' innovative activities, in terms of number and type of innovations. |
| Keywords: | Service Innovation, Demand Characteristics, Mobile Communications. |
| JEL: | O31 L96 D43 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp199&r=tid |
| By: | Grid Thoma (University of Camerino, Italy and Cespri, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.) |
| Abstract: | Several scholars have tried to focus on growth accounting of specific examples of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). But, what are the factors that might make a General Purpose Technology succeed or fail once the invention has been "triggered"? This paper is a preliminary answer to this question and attempts to study GPTs from an ex-ante perspective trying to understand what is the behaviour and performance of the producer firms and what the factors are that can favour or hamper their diffusion in the application sectors. The paper follows a historical perspective on a control technology, introduced in the last few decades by a Silicon Valley start-up company. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Organization, Technological Change. |
| JEL: | L13 L24 L8 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp195&r=tid |
| By: | Michael Noel; Mark Schankerman |
| Abstract: | Strategic patenting is widely believed to raise the costs of innovating,especially in industries characterised by cumulative innovation. This paperstudies the effects of strategic patenting on R&D, patenting and marketvalue in the computer software industry. We focus on two key aspects:patent portfolio size which affects bargaining power in patent disputes, andthe fragmentation of patent rights (.patent thickets.) which increases thetransaction costs of enforcement. We develop a model that incorporates botheffects, together with R&D spillovers. Using panel data for the period 1980-99, we find evidence that both strategic patenting and R&D spilloversstrongly affect innovation and market value of software firms. |
| Keywords: | patents, anti-commons, patent thickets, R&D spillovers, marketvalue |
| JEL: | L43 L86 O31 O32 O33 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2006–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stieip:43&r=tid |
| By: | Francesco Lissoni (University of Brescia, Brescia and Cespri - Bocconi University, Milano, Italy.); Patrick Llerena (BETA - Université L.Pasteur, Strasbourg, France.); Maureen McKelvey (RIDE-IMIT - Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden.); Bulat Sanditov (Cespri - Bocconi University, Milano, Italy and MERIT - Maastricht University, The Netherlands.) |
| Abstract: | The paper provides summary statistics from the KEINS database on academic patenting in France, Italy, and Sweden. It shows that academic scientists in those countries have signed many more patents than previously estimated. This re?evaluation of academic patenting comes by considering all patents signed by academic scientists active in 2004, both those assigned to universities and the many more held by business companies, governmental organizations, and public laboratories. Specific institutional features of the university and research systems in the three countries contribute to explain these ownership patterns, which are remarkably different from those observed in the US. In the light of these new data, European universities’ contribution to domestic patenting appears not to be much less intense than that of their US counterparts. |
| Keywords: | Technology transfer, University patents, Academic inventors. |
| JEL: | I23 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp202&r=tid |
| By: | D'Erasmo, Pablo |
| Abstract: | In this paper I ask whether a model of ¯rm capital accumulation with entry and exit calibrated to match the investment regularities of U.S. establishments is capable of generating the dependence of ¯rm dynamics on size and age. Firms face uncertainty in the form of idiosyncratic productivity shocks and are subject to non-convex capital adjustment costs. I solve for the stationary equilibrium to show that the model can account for the simultaneous dependence of industry dynamics on size (once we condition on age) and on age (once we condition on size). |
| Keywords: | firm dynamics; investment; financial constraints |
| JEL: | D21 G11 E22 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3598&r=tid |
| By: | Antoine Bureth; Moritz Mueller; Julien Pénin; Sandrine Wolff |
| Abstract: | Au-delà de ses fonctions en termes de protection et de financement de l’innovation, le brevet est aussi un instrument de médiation et un support d’interactions. Dans le cas du développement des nouveaux vaccins issus du génie génétique, nous montrons qu’il est une composante essentielle de la production d’innovation. Un vaccin génique se construit en effet à partir de trois modules fondamentaux : l’antigène, le vecteur, et l’adjuvant. L’avènement des techniques du génie génétique favorise un développement autonome de ces composants, aussi bien sur les plans technique qu'organisationnel ou cognitif. Les brevets deviennent alors des instruments stratégiques d’information et de négociation dans l’élaboration de l’architecture du produit. Ils jouent un rôle d'interface entre des organisations, des trajectoires technologiques et des champs de savoir hétérogènes. |
| Keywords: | Droit de Propriété Intellectuelle, vaccins, génomique, modularité, innovation collective. |
| JEL: | I11 L24 L65 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2007-22&r=tid |
| By: | Brito, Paulo; Dixon, Huw (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we consider the entry and exit of firms in a dynamic general equilibrium model with capital and a fixed labour supply. At the firm level, there is a fixed cost combined with increasing marginal cost, which gives a standard U-shaped cost curve with optimal firm size. Entry is determined by a free entry condition such that the costs of entry are equal to the present value of incumbent firms. As short run profits are a decreasing function of the number of firms, we add a new stability mechanism in addition to the diminishing returns to capital. Then equilibrium is saddle-point stable and the stable manifold is two-dimensional. Transitional dynamics can, under certain circumstances, be non-monotonic. We study the effects of productivity and fixed cost shocks on the aggregate activity, the number and the size of firms. |
| Keywords: | Entry; dynamics; Ramsey |
| JEL: | D92 C62 E32 O41 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2007/16&r=tid |
| By: | BISMUT, Sophie |
| Abstract: | In recent years, the European telecommunications market has witnessed major developments, with rapid expansion in access to telecommunications networks and a surge in the number of available services and applications. While many factors have contributed to the transformation of the telecommunications industry, competition has played a key role in driving telecom players to invest in new technologies, to innovate and to offer new services. Increased competitive pressure is being felt across all market segments, even though significant differences remain across services and countries. Broadband roll-out has allowed operators to offer multiple-play services, thereby transforming traditional segment boundaries and competitive market structures. |
| Keywords: | competition; access; convergence; multiple-play; fixed telephony; mobile services; broadband; VoIP; MVNO. |
| JEL: | L51 L40 L50 L41 K23 L96 L33 L94 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3567&r=tid |
| By: | Pengfei Wang; Yi Wen |
| Abstract: | Under aggregate technology shocks, both aggregate inputs and sectorial inputs decline initially and then rise permanently. However, under sector-specific technology shocks, sectorial inputs decline permanently. In addition, sectorial output is very responsive to aggregate technology shocks but not so to sector-specific technology shocks. We show that a flexible-price RBC model with firm entry and exit is consistent with these stylized facts. |
| Keywords: | Business cycles ; Equilibriuim (Economics) |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2007-018&r=tid |
| By: | Satyajit Chatterjee; Esteban Rossi-Hansberg |
| Abstract: | The authors propose a theory of firm dynamics in which workers have ideas for new projects that can be sold in a market to existing firms or implemented in new firms: spin-offs. Workers have private information about the quality of their ideas. Because of an adverse selection problem, workers can sell their ideas to existing firms only at a price that is not contingent on their information. The authors show that the option to spin off in the future is valuable so only workers with very good ideas decide to spin off and set up a new firm. Since entrepreneurs of existing firms pay a price for the ideas sold in the market that implies zero expected profits for them, firms’ project selection is independent of their size, which, under some assumptions, leads to scale-independent growth. The entry and growth process of firms in this economy leads to an invariant distribution that resembles the one in the U.S. economy. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:07-15&r=tid |