nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2014‒09‒29
three papers chosen by
Fulvio Castellacci
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt

  1. Innovation on the seed market : the role of IPRs and commercialisation rules By Adrien Hervouet; Marc Baudry
  2. Heterogeneous policies, heterogenous technologies : the case of renewable energy By Francesco Nicolli; Francesco Vona
  3. Job creation, firm creation, and de novo entry By Karen GEURTS; Johannes VAN BIESEBROECK

  1. By: Adrien Hervouet (LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - Université de Nantes : EA4272); Marc Baudry (EconomiX - CNRS : UMR7166 - Université Paris X - Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)
    Abstract: This article deals with the impact of legislation in the seed sector on incentives for variety creation. The first category of rules consists in intellectual property rights and is intended to address a problem of sequential innovation and R&D investments. The second category concerns commercial rules that are intended to correct a problem of adverse selection. We propose a dynamic model of market equilibrium with vertical product differentiation that enables us to take into account the economic consequences of imposing either Plant Breeders' Rights (PBRs) or patents as IPRs and either compulsory registration or minimum standards as commercialisation rules. The main result is that the combination of minimum standards and PBRs (patents) provides higher incentives for sequential and initial innovation and may be preferred by a public regulator when sunk investment costs are low (high) and the probability of R&D success is sufficiently high (low).
    Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights; Plant Breeders' Rights; Catalogue; Product differentiation; Seed market; Biodiversity
    Date: 2014–09–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01060565&r=tid
  2. By: Francesco Nicolli (Università di Ferrara); Francesco Vona (OFCE Sciences Po, Skema Business School)
    Abstract: This paper investigates empirically the effect of market regulation and renewable energy policies on innovation activity in different renewable energy technologies. For the EU countries and the years 1980 to 2007, we built a unique dataset containing information on patent production in eight different technologies, proxies of market regulation and technology-specific renewable energy policies. Our main findings show that lowering entry barriers is a more significant driver of renewable energy innovation than privatisation and unbundling, but its effect varies across technologies, being stronger in technologies characterised by the potential entry of small, independent power producers. Additionally, the inducement effect of renewable energy policies is heterogeneous and more pronounced for wind, which is the only technology that is mature and has high technological potential. Finally, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol – determining a more stable and less uncertain policy framework - amplifies the inducement effect of both energy policy and market liberalisation.
    Date: 2014–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:1415&r=tid
  3. By: Karen GEURTS; Johannes VAN BIESEBROECK
    Abstract: Firm turnover and growth recorded in administrative data sets differ from underlying firm dynamics. By tracing the employment history of the workforce of new and disappearing administrative firm identifiers, we can accurately identify de novo entrants and true economic exits, even when firms change identifier, merge, or split-up. For a well-defined group of new firms entering the Belgian economy between 2004 and 2011, we find highly regular post-entry employment dynamics in spite of the volatile macroeconomic environment. Exit rates decrease with age and size. Surviving entrants record high employment growth that is monotonically decreasing with age in every size class. Most remarkably, we find that Gibrat’s law is violated for very young firms. Conditional on age, the relationship between employment growth and current size is strongly and robustly positive. This pattern is obscured, or even reversed, when administrative entrants and exits are taken at face value. De novo entrants’ contribution to job creation is relatively small and not very persistent, in particular for (the large majority of) new firms that enter with fewer than five employees.
    Date: 2014–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces14.25&r=tid

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