nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2011‒07‒21
four papers chosen by
Rui Baptista
Technical University of Lisbon

  1. Do firms that create intellectual property also create and sustain more good jobs? Evidence for UK firms, 2000-2006 By Christine Greenhalgh; Mark Rogers; Philipp Schautschick
  2. Firm collaboration and modes of innovation in Norway By Rune Dahl Fitjar; Andrés Rodríguez-Pose
  3. Job creation in business services:Innovation, Demand, Polarisation. By Francesco Bogliacino; Matteo Lucchese; Mario Pianta
  4. Innovation, demand and structural change in Europe. By Matteo Lucchese

  1. By: Christine Greenhalgh (Oxford University); Mark Rogers (Oxford University); Philipp Schautschick (University of Munich)
    Abstract: A common assumption in innovation policy circles is that creative and inventive firms will help to sustain employment and wages in high wage countries. The view is that firms in high cost production locations that do not innovate are faced with loss of market share from import competition, so jobs move to producers in developing countries with lower labour costs. Domestic firms are encouraged to innovate, and to obtain intellectual property assets to protect their innovations, so that they can sustain local employment and pay high wages. Policies to subsidise R&D and to encourage intellectual property protection are partly justified on these grounds. Nevertheless the available evidence concerning the employment and wage benefits of such activity is rather sparse. In this paper we first survey some existing literature on innovation and jobs. We outline arguments for using both patents and trade marks as indicators of innovation. We then construct a large sample of UK firms observed from 2000 to 2006, matching records of patents and trade marks to company data. We begin by estimating a cross section employment growth equation for 2003-2006 to discover if there is any impact of stocks of trade marks acquired in 2000-2003. We then explore in more detail the impact of recent trade mark and patenting activity on the level of employment and the average rate of pay in these firms. We do this using the data as a six year panel, estimating both an employment function and a relative earnings equation at the firm level. Our aim throughout is to identify and calibrate the assumed positive effects that underpin modern innovation policy.
    Keywords: patents, trademarks, innovation, labot costs, wages, firms
    JEL: D21 E22 H32 K13
    Date: 2011–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:indrel:1319&r=tid
  2. By: Rune Dahl Fitjar (IRIS - International Research Institute of Stavanger); Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (IMDEA Social Sciences)
    Abstract: This paper examines the sources of firm product and process innovation in Norway. It uses a purpose-built survey of 1604 firms in the five largest Norwegian city-regions to test, by means of a logit regression analysis, Jensen et al.'s (2007) contention that firm innovation is both the result of 'science, technology and innovation' (STI) and 'doing, using and interacting' (DUI) modes of firm learning. The paper classifies different types of firm interaction into STI-mode interaction (with consultants, universities, and research centres) and DUI-mode interaction, distinguishing between DUI interaction within the supply-chain (i.e. with suppliers and customers) or not (with competitors). It further controls for the geographical locations of partners. The analysis demonstrates that engagement with external agents is an important source of firm innovation and that both STI and DUI-modes of interaction matter. However, it also shows that DUI modes of interaction outside the supply chain tend to be irrelevant for innovation, with frequent exchanges with competitors having a detrimental effect on a firm's propensity to innovate. Collaboration with extra-regional agents is much more conducive to innovation than collaboration with local partners, especially within the DUI mode.This paper examines the sources of firm product and process innovation in Norway. It uses a purpose-built survey of 1604 firms in the five largest Norwegian city-regions to test, by means of a logit regression analysis, Jensen et al.'s (2007) contention that firm innovation is both the result of 'science, technology and innovation' (STI) and 'doing, using and interacting' (DUI) modes of firm learning. The paper classifies different types of firm interaction into STI-mode interaction (with consultants, universities, and research centres) and DUI-mode interaction, distinguishing between DUI interaction within the supply-chain (i.e. with suppliers and customers) or not (with competitors). It further controls for the geographical locations of partners. The analysis demonstrates that engagement with external agents is an important source of firm innovation and that both STI and DUI-modes of interaction matter. However, it also shows that DUI modes of interaction outside the supply chain tend to be irrelevant for innovation, with frequent exchanges with competitors having a detrimental effect on a firm's propensity to innovate. Collaboration with extra-regional agents is much more conducive to innovation than collaboration with local partners, especially within the DUI mode.
    Keywords: Innovation; firms; suppliers; customers; competitors; universities; STI; DUI; R&D; geography; Norway
    Date: 2011–07–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2011-12&r=tid
  3. By: Francesco Bogliacino (European Commission); Matteo Lucchese (Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo"); Mario Pianta (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo")
    Abstract: The patterns and mechanisms of job creation in business services are investigated in this article by considering the role of innovation, demand, wages and the composition of employment by professional groups. A model is developed and an empirical test is carried out with parallel analyses on a group of selected business services, on other services and on manufacturing sectors,considering six major European countries over the period 1996-2007. Within technological activities a distinction is made between those supporting either technological competitiveness, or cost competitiveness. Demand variables allow identifying the special role of intermediate demand. Job creation in business services appears to be driven by efforts to expand technological competitiveness and by the fast growing intermediate demand coming from other industries; conversely, process innovation leads to job losses and wage growth has a negative effect that is lower that in other industries. Business services show an increasingly polarised employment structure.
    Keywords: Business Services, Innovation, Employment.
    JEL: J20 J23 O30 O33
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:11_07&r=tid
  4. By: Matteo Lucchese (Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo")
    Abstract: The model and the empirical test developed in this paper address the determinants of structural change for six major European economies from 1995 to 2007. The performances of sectors are explained by the unfolding of uneven technological opportunities and different conditions of demand. Building on the literature on structural change and on previous studies on the link between sectoral patterns of innovation and economic performance of sectors, a set of tests is developed on a panel of 21 manufacturing sectors and 17 services, merging three different sources of data. The results show the importance of breaking up the innovative efforts of sectors and the role of demand in shaping their trajectories of development.
    Keywords: Structural change, Demand, Innovation, Industry-level analysis.
    JEL: O10 O33 O41
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:11_09&r=tid

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