nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2012‒02‒20
six papers chosen by
Rui Baptista
Technical University of Lisbon

  1. Innovation or Imitation? The effect of spillovers and competitive pressure on firms’ R&D strategy choice By Slivko, Olga; Theilen, Bernd
  2. R&D Productivity and Firm Size in Semiconductors and Pharmaceuticals: Evidence from Citation Yields By Burak Dindaroglu
  3. Shared Rights and Technological Progress By Mitchell, Matthew; Zhang, Yuzhe
  4. Promoting Competition by Coordinating Prices: When Rivals Share Intellectual Property By Gallini, Nancy
  5. High Growth Firms and Innovation: an empirical analysis for Spanish firms By Segarra Blasco, Agustí; Teruel Carrizosa, Mercedes
  6. Market structures, strategy and innovation in services A study applied to the tourism sector By Luisa Carvalho

  1. By: Slivko, Olga; Theilen, Bernd
    Abstract: This article provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of a firm's optimal R&D strategy choice. In this paper a firm's R&D strategy is assumed to be endogenous and allowed to depend on both internal firms. characteristics and external factors. Firms choose between two strategies, either they engage in R&D or abstain from own R&D and imitate the outcomes of innovators. In the theoretical model this yields three types of equilibria in which either all firms innovate, some firms innovate and others imitate, or no firm innovates. Firms'equilibrium strategies crucially depend on external factors. We find that the efficiency of intellectual property rights protection positively affects firms'incentives to engage in R&D, while competitive pressure has a negative effect. In addition, smaller firms are found to be more likely to become imitators when the product is homogeneous and the level of spillovers is high. These results are supported by empirical evidence for German .rms from manufacturing and services sectors. Regarding social welfare our results indicate that strengthening intellectual property protection can have an ambiguous effect. In markets characterized by a high rate of innovation a reduction of intellectual property rights protection can discourage innovative performance substantially. However, a reduction of patent protection can also increase social welfare because it may induce imitation. This indicates that policy issues such as the optimal length and breadth of patent protection cannot be resolved without taking into account specific market and firm characteristics. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C35, D43, L13, L22, O31. Keywords: Innovation; imitation; spillovers; product differentiation; market competition; intellectual property rights protection.
    Keywords: Empreses -- Innovacions tecnològiques, Diferenciació de productes, Propietat intel·lectual, 33 - Economia, 65 - Gestió i organització. Administració i direcció d'empreses. Publicitat. Relacions públiques. Mitjans de comunicació de masses,
    Date: 2011–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/179618&r=tid
  2. By: Burak Dindaroglu (Department of Economics, Izmir University of Economics)
    Abstract: Using firm level panel data from the U.S., I explore the relationship between firm size and R&D productivity for two important and R&D-intensive industries: Semiconductors and Pharmaceuticals. I employ two measures of a firm's R&D performance: the number of citations received per patented innovation, and the number of citations received per dollar of R&D expenditures. The former is a measure of the average quality of a firm's patents, and the latter is a measure of total R&D output obtained per dollar of investments. I find that the average quality of patents (citations received per patent) falls with firm size in Pharmaceuticals, but there is no relationship between patent quality and firm size in Semiconductors. Citations received per R&D dollar decrease with size in both industries, which is due to the well-documented negative relationship between patents per R&D and firm size.
    Keywords: R&D Productivity, Firm size, Patents, Citations, Semiconductors, Pharmaceuticals, Panel data
    JEL: L1 L2
    Date: 2011–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:izm:wpaper:1101&r=tid
  3. By: Mitchell, Matthew; Zhang, Yuzhe
    Abstract: We study how best to reward innovators whose work builds on earlier innovations. Incentives to innovate are obtained by offering innovators the opportunity to profit from their innovations. Since innovations compete, awarding rights to one innovator reduces the value of the rights to prior innovators. We show that the optimal allocation involves shared rights, where more than one innovator is promised a share of profits from a given innovation. We interpret such allocations in three ways: as patents that infringe on prior art, as licensing through an optimally designed ever-growing patent pool, and as randomization through litigation. We contrast the rate of technological progress under the optimal allocation with the outcome if sharing is prohibitively costly, and therefore must be avoided. Avoiding sharing initially slows progress, and leads to a more variable rate of technological progress.
    Keywords: Cumulative Innovation; Patent; Licensing; Patent Pool; Litigation
    JEL: O34 D82 O31 D43 L53
    Date: 2012–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36537&r=tid
  4. By: Gallini, Nancy
    Abstract: The paper examines technology agreements and the standards process from which they emerge when members supply inputs to the alliance while simultaneously competing with it. Under this overlapping ownership structure, pool members are horizontally related. I show that strategic complementarity between the downstream products owned by a member and those arising from the collaboration is sufficient for a pool to be pro-competitive. Although patent pools are more efficient than uncoordinated pricing, consumers are better off if an outside firm rather than a pool member owns the non-pool competing product. Antitrust rules facilitating efficient IP agreements under overlapping ownership and their implications for the direction of technological change are derived.
    Keywords: Patent Pools, Intellectual Property, Antitrust Policy
    Date: 2012–02–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:bricol:nancy_gallini-2012-5&r=tid
  5. By: Segarra Blasco, Agustí; Teruel Carrizosa, Mercedes
    Abstract: This paper analyzes the effect of firms’ innovation activities on their growth performance. In particular, we observe how important innovation is for high-growth firms (HGFs) for an extensive sample of Spanish manufacturing and services firms. The panel data used comprises diverse waves of Spanish CIS over the the period 2004-2008. First, a probit analysis determines whether innovation affects the probability of being a high-growth firm. And second, a quantile regression technique is applied to explore the determinants and characteristics of specific groups of firms (manufacturing versus service firms and high-tech versus low-tech firms). It is revealed that R&D plays a significant role in the probability of becoming a HGF. Investment in internal and external R&D per employee has a positive impact on firm growth (although internal R&D presents a significant impact in the last quantiles, external R&D is significant up to the median). Furthermore, we show evidence that there is a positive impact of employment (sales) growth on the sales (employment) growth. Keywords: high-growth firms, firm growth, innovation activity JEL Classifications: L11, L25, O30
    Keywords: Empreses -- Innovacions tecnològiques -- Espanya, Empreses -- Creixement, 33 - Economia, 65 - Gestió i organització. Administració i direcció d'empreses. Publicitat. Relacions públiques. Mitjans de comunicació de masses,
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/179669&r=tid
  6. By: Luisa Carvalho (ESCE/Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal and CEFAGE-UE)
    Abstract: The objectives of this paper are twofold – first we discuss innovation in the service sector, especially in tourism. Secondly, we apply the diagnostic test of the integrated model of innovation (Sarkar 2005, 2007) to present the results of an empirical study applied to tourism in a small open economy. The study applies multivariate analysis using a data set consisting of survey responses from 158 Portuguese firms. The study uses an archetype and the market outcome resulting from the innovation strategies pursued to compare similarities and differences according to the geographical localizations of the firms in order to identify innovative patterns in tourism firms. The study identifies the linkage between service, market structures and innovation strategies considering geographical agglomeration of firms in a small economy. The identification of different innovation trajectories and positions in the model could justify different public politics to incentivise and promote innovation in tourism firms.
    Keywords: Market structures; Strategy; Innovation.
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfe:wpcefa:2011_27&r=tid

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