nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2010‒12‒18
four papers chosen by
Rui Baptista
Technical University of Lisbon

  1. Do cooperative R&D subsidies stimulate regional innovation efficiency? Evidence from Germany By Tom Broekel
  2. Vertical Integration, Innovation and Foreclosure By Marie-Laure Allain; Claire Chambolle; Patrick Rey
  3. The Escape-Infringement Effect of Blocking Patents on Innovation and Economic Growth By Chu, Angus C.; Pan, Shiyuan
  4. What Determines the Innovation Capability of Firm Founders? By Spyros Arvanitis; Tobias Stucki

  1. By: Tom Broekel
    Abstract: The paper investigates the impact of R&D subsidies on regional innovation efficiency. Building on a rich panel data set covering 270 German labor market regions and four industries, it is particularly shown that subsidies for R&D cooperation are a suitable policy measure for stimulating the innovation efficiency of regions. The empirical findings moreover suggest that regions with low innovation capacities benefit from subsidized inter-regional cooperation involving partners with diverse industrial and sectoral backgrounds. Establishing inter-regional cooperation that give access to related knowledge and skills is more important for regions with large innovation capacities.
    Keywords: innovation policy, regional innovation efficiency, R&D subsidies, cooperation networks, knowledge networks
    JEL: O18 O38 R58 R12
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1017&r=tid
  2. By: Marie-Laure Allain (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique, Department of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique - CNRS : UMR7176 - Polytechnique - X); Claire Chambolle (Department of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique - CNRS : UMR7176 - Polytechnique - X, ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - INRA : UR1303); Patrick Rey (Toulouse School of Economics - Toulouse School of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper studies the potential effects of vertical integration on downstream firms' incentives to innovate. Interacting efficiently with a supplier may require information exchanges, which raises the concern that sensitive information may be disclosed to rivals. This may be particularly harmful in case of innovative activities, as it increases the risk of imitation. We show that vertical integration exacerbates this threat of imitation, which de facto degrades the integrated supplier's ability to interact with unintegrated competitors. Vertical integration may thus lead to input foreclosure, thereby raising rivals' cost and limiting both upstream competition and downstream innovation. A similar concern of customer foreclosure arises in the case of downstream bottlenecks.
    Keywords: Vertical Integration, Foreclosure, Innovation, Imitation, Firewall.
    Date: 2010–12–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00544494_v1&r=tid
  3. By: Chu, Angus C.; Pan, Shiyuan
    Abstract: This study develops a Schumpeterian growth model to analyze the effects of different patent instruments on innovation. We first analyze patent breadth that captures the traditional positive effect of patent rights on innovation. Then, we consider a profit-division rule between entrants and incumbents. Given the division of profit, increasing the share of profit assigned to incumbents reduces entrants' incentives for innovation. This aspect of blocking patents captures the recently proposed negative effect of patent rights on innovation. Finally, blocking patents generate a non-monotonic effect on innovation when the step size of innovation is endogenous due to a novel escape-infringement effect. Calibrating the model to aggregate data, we find that a marginal increase in the blocking effect of patent protection is likely to raise economic growth.
    Keywords: economic growth; innovation; intellectual property rights
    JEL: O34 O31 O40
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27233&r=tid
  4. By: Spyros Arvanitis (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland); Tobias Stucki (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
    Abstract: Innovative start-ups, not start-ups in general, seem to be important drivers of economic growth. However, little is known about how such firms look like. As activities of start-ups are strongly related to firm founders, we investigate this question focusing on the innovation capability of firm founders. We find that the combination of different founder characteristics such as university education (at best a combination of technical and commercial education), prior experience in R&D, and strong motivation to realize own innovative ideas increases innovative activities of start-ups by more than 40%.
    Keywords: Start-ups, innovation, founder characteristics
    JEL: M13 L26 O30
    Date: 2010–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kof:wpskof:10-265&r=tid

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