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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
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Issue of 2013‒12‒29
eight papers chosen by Fulvio Castellacci Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) |
| By: | Baldwin, John R. Liu, Huju Wang, Weimin |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the patterns of firm entry and exit across provinces in Canada, the relationship of these patterns to differences in industrial structure and the response of firm entry and exit to changes in the economic environment. Firm entry and exit play an important role in shaping industrial structure and dynamics. Although entry and exit are ubiquitous, new firms are often associated with new ideas and the provision of innovative goods and services that enhance competition and force incumbents to become more innovative and efficient. Studies have shown the considerable role played by entry and exit in resource reallocation and productivity improvement. |
| Keywords: | Business performance and ownership, Entry, exit, mergers and growth |
| Date: | 2013–12–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp1e:2013030e&r=tid |
| By: | Navaretti , Giorgio Barba (Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, University of Milan, Italy); Castellani , Davide (Department of Economics, Finance and Statistics, University of Perugia, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, Milan, Italy Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), Halle, Germany CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden); Pieri , Fabio (Depto. de Economia Aplicada II (Estructura Economica), Universitat de Valencia, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new insights on the dependence of firm growth on age along the entire distribution of (positive and negative) growth rates, and conditional on survival. Using data from the EFIGE survey, and adopting a quantile regression approach, we uncover evidence for a sample of French, Italian and Spanish manufacturing firms with more than 10 employees in the period from 2001 to 2008. After controlling for several firms’ characteristics, country and sector specificities we find that: (i) young firms grow faster than old firms, especially in the highest growth quantiles; (ii) young firms face the same probability of declining than their older counterparts; (iii) results are robust to the inclusion of other firms’ characteristics such as labor productivity, capital intensity, and the financial structure; (iv) high growth is associated with younger CEOs and other attributes which capture the attitude of the firm toward growth and change. The effect of age on firm growth is rather similar across countries. |
| Keywords: | firm growth; age; quantile regression |
| JEL: | L21 L25 L26 L60 |
| Date: | 2013–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2013_041&r=tid |
| By: | Tavassoli, Sam (Industrial Economics, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden and CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how the influence of firm-level innovation determinants varies over the industry life cycle. Two sets of determinants are distinguished: (1) determinants of a firm’s innovation propensity, i.e. the likelihood of being innovative and (2) determinants of its innovation intensity, i.e. innovation sales. By combining the literature emphasizing firms’ internal resources (micro level) with the research strand on the role of the industry context (meso-level), the paper develops hypotheses about the relative importance of firm-level innovation determinants over the industry life cycle. Estimation of a firm-level model of innovation in Sweden, while acknowledging the stage of the life cycle of the industry a firms belongs to, shows that the importance of the determinants of innovation propensity and intensity are not equal over the stages of an industry’s life cycle |
| Keywords: | Determinants of innovation; innovation intensity; innovation propensity; Industry Life Cycle (ILC); Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) |
| JEL: | F14 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2013–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2013_042&r=tid |
| By: | Julieta Caunedo (Washington University in St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how features of the business cycle interact with technological restrictions at the firm level to generate dispersion in marginal products of ex ante identical firms. The model is able to deliver a non-monotonic relationship between dispersion in marginal products, aggregate productivity and the features of the business cycle. When aggregate uncertainty is low and dispersion in marginal products is low, aggregate productivity is high. But when aggregate uncertainty is high, aggregate productivity is low, and the allocation can be consistent with low dispersion in marginal products. These two alternative economies differ in their underlying industry dynamic. Hence, dispersion is an imperfect statistic of aggregate productivity in the model. Allocations are typically non efficient due to imperfect competition and non-convexities in production. I study the properties of the optimal industrial policy. In general, the efficient allocation does not dictate equalization of capital labor ratios across all firms. Allocations are dynamically optimal so there is no room for further reallocation. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed013:1078&r=tid |
| By: | Tavassoli, Sam (Industrial Economics, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden and CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the role of innovation on the export behavior of firms. Using two waves of Swedish CIS data merged with register data on firm-specific characteristics, I estimate the influence of the innovation output of a firm on its export propensity and intensity, respectively. I find that the innovation output of firms (measured as sales due to innovative products) has a positive and significant effect on export behavior of firms. The results also show that it is indeed innovation output, rather than innovation input (innovative efforts), that matters for export behavior of firms. Specifically, innovation output leads to increase in later export propensity and intensity of firms. Moreover, there is also strong association of productivity and ownership structure of firms with export propensity and intensity of firms. The results are robust when unobserved timeinvariant heterogeneity of firm and also potential endogeneity of innovation-export are taken into accounted. |
| Keywords: | Innovation output; innovation input; export propensity; export intensity |
| JEL: | F14 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2013–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2013_038&r=tid |
| By: | Georg Licht; Bettina Peters |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of environmental innovation on employment growth using firmlevel data for 16 European countries and the period 2006-2008. It extends the model by Harrison et al (2008) in order to distinguish between employment effects of environmental and non-environmental product as well as process innovation. By looking at country and sector level differences, it also generates new insights into the heterogeneity of the environmental innovation-employment growth link along different dimensions. The results demonstrate that both environmental and non-environmental product innovations are conducive to employment growth in European firms. We estimate a gross employment effect of product innovation for both types of product innovators that is very similar in nearly all countries and sectors. That is, in most cases a one-percent increase in the sales due to new products for environmental product innovators also increases gross employment by one percent. This implies that there is no evidence that environmentally-friendly new products are produced with higher or lower efficiency than old products. Yet, we observe differences in the contribution of environmental and non-environmental product innovation to employment growth across countries or sectors that are the result of differences in the average innovation engagement and innovation success across countries or sectors. The absolute contribution to employment growth is positive for both types of new products. However, we find mixed evidence for the relative importance. In manufacturing the contribution of environmental product innovators was larger than that of non-environmental product innovators in half of the countries. In services, however, non-environmental product innovators matters more for growth in the vast majority of countries. In contrast, environmental and non-environmental process innovation plays only a little role for employment growth. |
| Keywords: | Environmental innovation, employment growth, Europe |
| JEL: | O33 J23 L80 C21 C23 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feu:wfewop:y:2013:m:12:d:0:i:50&r=tid |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Rexhäuser, Sascha |
| Abstract: | Significant policy effort is devoted to stimulate the development, adoption and diffusion of environmentally- friendly technology. Sceptics worry about the effects of regulation-induced environmental technology on firms' competitiveness. Since innovation is a crucial productivity driver, a potential crowding out of inventive efforts could increase the cost of mitigating environmental damage. Using matching techniques, we study the short-term effects of regulation-induced environmental technology on non-green innovative activities for a sample of firms in Germany. We find indeed some evidence for a crowding out of the firms' in-house R&D. The estimated treatment effect is larger for firms that are likely to face financing constraints. However, we do not find negative effects on the number of ongoing R&D projects, investments in innovation-related fixed assets or on the outcome of innovation projects. Likewise, for firms with subsidy-backed environmental innovations no crowding out is found. -- |
| Keywords: | Environmental Policy,Regulation,R&D,Technological Change,Innovation,Crowding Out |
| JEL: | O32 O33 Q55 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:128&r=tid |
| By: | Joëlle Noailly; Victoria Shestalova |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the knowledge spillovers generated by renewable-energy technologies, unraveling the technological fields that benefit from knowledge developed in storage, solar, wind, marine, hydropower, geothermal, waste and biomass energy technologies. A CPB Background Document accompanies this�CPB Discussion Paper. Using citation data of patents in renewable technologies at seventeen European countries over the 1978-2006 period, the analysis examines the relative importance of knowledge flows within the same specific technological field (intra-technology spillovers), to other technologies in the field of power-generation (inter-technology spillovers), and to technologies unrelated to power-generation (external-technology spillovers). The results show significant differences across various renewable technologies. While wind technologies mainly find applications within their own technological field, a large share of innovations in solar energy and storage technologies find applications outside the field of power generation, suggesting that solar technologies are more general and, therefore, may have a higher value for society. Finally, the knowledge from waste and biomass technologies is mainly exploited by fossil-fuel power-generating technologies. The paper discusses the implications of these results for the design of R&D policies for renewable energy innovation. |
| JEL: | O33 Q42 Q48 Q55 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:262&r=tid |