nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2017‒04‒09
ten papers chosen by
Fulvio Castellacci
Universitetet i Oslo

  1. Public R&D support in Italy. Evidence from a new firm-level patent data set By Aiello, Francesco; Albanese, Giuseppe; Piselli, Paolo
  2. Inter-industry Labor Flows By Frank Neffke; Anne Otto; Antje Weyh
  3. Innovation, Spillovers and Productivity Growth: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach By Christopher Baum; Hans Lööf,; Pardis Nabavi
  4. Agglomeration Economies: The Heterogeneous Contribution of Human Capital and Value Chains By Dario Diodato; Frank Neffke; Neave O'Clery
  5. Measures of Participation in Global Value Chains and Global Business Cycles By Zhi Wang; Shang-Jin Wei; Xinding Yu; Kunfu Zhu
  6. The impact of the Great Recession on TFP convergence among EU countries By Dolores Añón Higón; Juan A. Mañez; A. Sanchis; A. Sanchis
  7. The Causal Impact of Human Capital on R&D and Productivity: Evidence from the United States By Verónica Mies; Matías Tapia; Ignacio Loeser
  8. Access to Financing and Firm Growth: Evidence from Ethiopia By Dereje Regasa; David Fielding; Helen Roberts
  9. Faraway, so Close: Coupled Climate and Economic Dynamics in an Agent-Based Integrated Assessment Model By Francesco Lamperti; Giovanni Dosi; Mauro Napoletano; Andrea Roventini; Alessandro Sapio
  10. Endogenous Innovation: The Creative Response, By Antonelli, Crisiano

  1. By: Aiello, Francesco; Albanese, Giuseppe; Piselli, Paolo
    Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of R&D public support on the innovation activities of a sample of Italian SMEs. Unlike most of the literature, the analysis focuses more deeply on the innovation output than on the innovation input. The innovation output is measured through patent data. By using a new data set obtained by combining information from EPO records and the Capitalia data set on Italian corporations, we find that publicly supported firms have similar patenting activity to other R&D performers, regardless of the type of policy tool used to foster innovation. However, as far as patenting is concerned, supported SMEs face higher R&D spending than others.
    Keywords: Patents; R&D policy support; SMEs
    JEL: C21 L1 O31 O38
    Date: 2017–03–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:77955&r=tid
  2. By: Frank Neffke (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Anne Otto; Antje Weyh
    Abstract: Labor flows across industries reallocate resources and diffuse knowledge among economic activities. However, surprisingly little is known about the structure of such inter-industry flows. How freely do workers switch jobs among industries? Between which pairs of industries do we observe such switches? Do different types of workers have different transition matrices? Do these matrices change over time? Using German social security data, we generate stylized facts about inter-industry labor mobility and explore its consequences. We find that workers switch industries along tight paths that link industries in a sparse network. This labor-flow network is relatively stable over time, similar for workers in different occupations and wage categories and independent of whether workers move locally or over larger distances. When using these networks to construct inter-industry relatedness measures they prove better predictors of local industry growth rates than co-location or input-based alternatives. However, because industries that exchange much labor typically do not have correlated growth paths, the sparseness of the labor-flow network does not necessarily prevent a smooth reallocation of workers from shrinking to growing industries. To facilitate future research, the inter-industry relatedness matrices we develop are made available as an online appendix to this paper.
    Keywords: Germany, Economic Growth, Labor Economics
    Date: 2016–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:72&r=tid
  3. By: Christopher Baum; Hans Lööf,; Pardis Nabavi
    Abstract: This paper examines variation in productivity growth within a given location and between different locations. Implementing a dynamic panel data approach on Swedish micro data, we test the separate and complementary effect of internal innovation efforts and spillovers from the local milieu. Measuring the potential knowledge spillover by access to knowledgeintensive services, the estimation results produce strong evidence of differences in the capacity to benefit from external knowledge among persistent innovators, temporary innovators and non-innovators. The results are consistent regardless of whether innovation efforts are measured in terms of the frequency of patent applications or R&D investments see above see above
    Keywords: Sweden, Growth, Sectoral issues
    Date: 2015–07–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:008007:8970&r=tid
  4. By: Dario Diodato; Frank Neffke (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Neave O'Clery (Center for International Development at Harvard University)
    Abstract: We document the heterogeneity across sectors in the impact labor and input-output links have on industry agglomeration. Exploiting the available degrees of freedom in coagglomeration patterns, we estimate the industry-speci c bene fits of sharing labor needs and supply links with local firms. On aggregate, coagglomeration patterns of services are at least as strongly driven by input-output linkages as those of manufacturing, whereas labor linkages are much more potent drivers of coagglomeration in services than in manufacturing. Moreover, the degree to which labor and input-output linkages are reflected in an industry's coagglomeration patterns is relevant for predicting patterns of city-industry employment growth.
    Keywords: Coagglomeration, Marshallian externalities, labor pooling, value chains, manufacturing, services, regional diversi cation
    JEL: J24 O14 R11
    Date: 2016–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:76&r=tid
  5. By: Zhi Wang; Shang-Jin Wei; Xinding Yu; Kunfu Zhu
    Abstract: This paper makes two methodological contributions. First, it proposes a framework to decompose total production activities at the country, sector, or country-sector level, to different types, depending on whether they are for pure domestic demand, traditional international trade, simple GVC activities, and complex GVC activities. Second, it proposes a pair of GVC participation indices that improves upon the measures in the existing literature. We apply this decomposition framework to a Global Input-Output Database (WIOD) that cover 44 countries and 56 industries from 2000 to2014 to uncover evolving compositions of different production activities. We also show that complex GVC activities co-move with global GDP growth more strongly than other types of production activities.
    JEL: F10
    Date: 2017–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23222&r=tid
  6. By: Dolores Añón Higón (Department of Economic Structure, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).); Juan A. Mañez (Department of Economic Structure, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).; Department of Economic Structure, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).); A. Sanchis (Department of Economic Structure, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).); A. Sanchis (Department of Economic Structure, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).)
    Abstract: This paper provides evidence on the effect of the Great Recession on productivity convergence among EU economies. We use firm data, aggregated at the country-year level, to analyse the evolution of beta-convergence on total factor productivity (TFP) for 2003-2014. We obtain a positive impact of the recession on TFP (unconditional and conditional) beta-convergence across EU economies. These results support the existence of a catching-up process within the EU during the recent financial crisis. Other macroeconomic and institutional characteristics are important in fostering TFP growth, namely R&D intensity and quality of governance.
    Keywords: convergence, TFP, Great Recession, European Union countries
    JEL: F43 O47 O52
    Date: 2017–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eec:wpaper:1702&r=tid
  7. By: Verónica Mies; Matías Tapia; Ignacio Loeser
    Abstract: This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the impact of human capital on technology adoption and the production structure of the economy by using census micro data aggregated at the state level data for US cohorts born between 1915 and 1939. We test the impact of secondary and tertiary schooling in the US at the state-cohort level on R&D and TFP growth across industries in 1970. While we follow the literature in using the variation in the timing of compulsory schooling laws across states to instrument secondary schooling, we propose a novel instrument for tertiary enrollment. In particular, we exploit, as in Acemoglu, Autor and Lyle (2004), the differences across states and cohorts in World War II mobilization rates. While Acemoglu, Autor, and Lyle (2004) used this variation as an exogenous shift in female labor supply, we exploit the fact that WWII veterans were benefited by the GI Bill Act (1944), which granted them free college education once they were discharged from service. This provides a clean source of variation in the costs of attending college, which allows us to exploit differences in college enrollment across states and cohorts. Our results suggest that, consistent with the initial discussion, different types of human capital are associated to different effects on the productive structure of the economy. Two-stage least squared regressions find no effect of the share of population with secondary schooling over outcomes such as R&D per worker or TFP growth. On the other hand, the share of population with tertiary education has a significant effect on both R&D per worker or TFP growth. In particular, a 1% increase in the share of workers with tertiary education increases R&D per worker by 1.8 percentage points, and annual TFP growth by 1% for 17 years. Creation-Date: 2015
    JEL: J14 O12 L26 M53
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ioe:doctra:466&r=tid
  8. By: Dereje Regasa (Department of Accountancy and Finance, University of Otago, New Zealand); David Fielding (Department of Economics, University of Otago, New Zealand); Helen Roberts (Department of Economics, University of Otago, New Zealand)
    Abstract: Using Ethiopian firm-level data, we model the effect of different types of financing on firm growth. The form of financing is potentially endogenous to firm growth, and one contribution of this paper is to introduce a new instrumental variable which captures local variation in financial depth. Unlike previous studies of firms in low-income countries, we find evidence for a negative relationship between the use of external finance and firm growth, which suggests that there are substantial cross-country differences in the finance-growth nexus. We discuss possible explanations for this phenomenon and its implications for development policy.
    Keywords: Ethiopia; firm growth; external financing
    JEL: D24 G31 O55
    Date: 2017–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:otg:wpaper:1707&r=tid
  9. By: Francesco Lamperti; Giovanni Dosi; Mauro Napoletano; Andrea Roventini; Alessandro Sapio
    Abstract: In this paper we develop the first agent-based integrated assessment model, which offers an alternative to standard, computable general-equilibrium frameworks. The Dystopian Schumpeter meeting Keynes (DSK) model is composed of heterogeneous firms belonging to capital-good, consumption-good and energy sectors. Production and energy generation leads to greenhouse gas emissions, which affect temperature dynamics in a non-linear way. Increasing temperature triggers climate damages hitting, at the micro-level, workers' labor productivity, energy efficiency, capital stock and inventories of firms. In that, aggregate damages are emerging properties of the out-of-equilibrium interactions among heterogeneous and boundedly rational agents. We find the DSK model is able to account for a wide ensemble of micro and macro empirical regularities concerning both economic and climate dynamics. Moreover, different types of shocks have heterogeneous impact on output growth, unemployment rate, and the likelihood of economic crises. Finally, we show that the magnitude and the uncertainty associated to climate change impacts increase over time, and that climate damages are much larger than those estimated through standard integrated assessment models. Our results point to the presence of tipping points and irreversible trajectories, thereby suggesting the need of urgent policy interventions.
    Keywords: Climate Change; Agent-Based Models; Integrated Assessment; Macroeconomic Dynamics; Climate Damages.
    Date: 2017–03–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2017/12&r=tid
  10. By: Antonelli, Crisiano (University of Turin)
    Abstract: The limits of both evolutionary approaches, based upon biological metaphors, and the new growth theory based on the early economics of knowledge, are becoming apparent. Considerable progress can be made by implementing an evolutionary complexity approach that builds upon the legacy of Schumpeter (1947) with the notions of: i)reactive decision making; ii) multiple feedback; iii) innovation as the outcome of an emergent system process rather than individual action; iv);organized complexity and knowledge connectivity; iv) endogenous variety; vi) non ergodic path dependent dynamics. Building upon these bases, the paper articulates an endogenous theory of innovation centered upon the analysis of the systemic conditions that make the creative reaction and hence the introduction of innovations possible.
    Date: 2017–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201712&r=tid

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