nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2018‒04‒09
eleven papers chosen by
Fulvio Castellacci
Universitetet i Oslo

  1. Innovation and Trade Policy in a Globalizing World By Ufuk Akcigit
  2. Innovation and Product Reallocation in the Great Recession By Sara Moreira; Munseob Lee; David Argente
  3. Firm Survival and Innovation: Knowledge Context Matters! By Fernanda Mazzotta; Ornella Wanda Maietta
  4. A Take of Two Americas: the Evolution of Innovation Networks across US Cities By Hyunju Lee; Alessandra Fogli
  5. Worldwide IP coverage of patented inventions in large pharma firms: to what extent do the internationalisation of R&D and firm strategy matter? By Patricia Laurens; Christian Le Bas; Antoine Schoen
  6. Effects of automatisation and digitalisation on manufacturing companies' production efficiency and innovation performance By Kroll, Henning; Horvat, Djerdj; Jäger, Angela
  7. Innovation strategies of firms: Identification, dynamics and intra-industry heterogeneity By Hollenstein, Heinz
  8. Gross, Net, and New Job Creation by Entrepreneurs By Astebro, Thomas B.; Tåg, Joacim
  9. Innovative products and services with environmental benefits: design of search strategies for external knowledge and absorptive capacity By Caroline Mothe; Uyen Nguyen-Thi; Angela Triguero-Cano
  10. Autonomous systems: A bibliometric and patent analysis By Youtie, Jan; Porter, Alan L.; Shapira, Philip; Woo, Seokkyun; Huang, Yayun
  11. Creativity and entrepreneurship: Empirical evidence for Catalonia By Coll Martínez, Eva

  1. By: Ufuk Akcigit (University of Chicago)
    Abstract: We assess the role of import tariffs and R&D subsidies as policy responses to foreign technological competition. To this end, we build a general equilibrium growth model embedding a Ricardian framework of trade where firm innovation shapes endogenously the dynamics of technology and market leadership in a world with countries at differ- ent stages of development. Knowledge spillovers and decreasing returns to knowledge accumulation drive cross-country technological convergence. Firms’ R&D decisions are driven by the size of the market, the effort to escape competitive pressures, domestic and international business stealing, and technology spillovers. A calibrated version of the model reproduces the foreign technological catch-up the U.S. experienced by the 1970s and early 1980s. Accounting for transitional dynamics, we show that foreign technolog- ical acceleration hurts the U.S. welfare in the short and medium run through business stealing, but generates long-run benefits via higher quality of imported goods and higher domestic innovation in the U.S. induced by escape-competition effect. The model suggests that the introduction of Research and Experimentation Tax Credit in 1981 proves to be an effective policy response to foreign competition, generating substantial welfare gains. A counterfactual exercise shows that increasing trade barriers as an alternative policy re- sponse produces gains only in the very short run, leading to large losses in the medium and long run. Protectionist measures generate large dynamic losses from trade, distort- ing the impact of openness on innovation incentives and productivity growth.
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:1627&r=tid
  2. By: Sara Moreira (Northwestern University); Munseob Lee (University of Chicago); David Argente (University of Chicago)
    Abstract: We exploit detailed product- and firm-level data to study the sources of innovation and the patterns of productivity growth in the consumer goods sector over the period 2006-2014. Using a dataset that contains information on the product portfolio of each firm and the characteristics of each product, we document new facts on product reallocation. First, we find that reallocation of products happens within the boundaries of the firm, but the largest changes in product quality come from new firms launching new varieties and from small firms expanding to other product lines. Second, we document that product reallocation within and between firms are procyclical and that product reallocation within firms was more affected than product reallocation between firms during the great recession. Finally, we quantify the extent to which product reallocation affects firm-level productivity growth and and innovation as reflected by changes in their total factor productivity. Our preliminary findings suggest that within-firm product reallocation contributes substantially to the growth in innovation across all sectors.
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:1614&r=tid
  3. By: Fernanda Mazzotta (Università di Salerno); Ornella Wanda Maietta (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF)
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the differential effect of innovation on firm survival. We consider the effect of product, process and organisational innovations controlling for the role of the knowledge context and of firm absorptive capacity. At the end of the 1990s, an ad hoc survey was performed on a representative sample of manufacturing firms located in a NUTS3 area of southern Italy, and information on firm survival has been collected for 15 years. A multivariate endogenous probit model is applied to simultaneously analyse the determinants of innovation and of subsequent firm survival. Our estimates confirm that process innovation is a determinant of firm survival followed by product innovation, whereas evidence of a more novel type suggests that organisational innovation plays only a weak role. Entrepreneurial general and specific human capital exerts no direct beneficial effect on firm duration. The requirement of proper technological knowledge from the local university has been the driver of firm duration with the highest marginal effect.
    Keywords: Firm survival, Information network, Human capital, Italian SMEs
    JEL: L20 O3 D22 I2
    Date: 2017–04–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:496&r=tid
  4. By: Hyunju Lee (University of Minnesota); Alessandra Fogli (Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank)
    Abstract: We analyze the geographic dimension of innovation. Innovation is the critical component of long term prosperity and it is unevenly distributed across US. Using data on 1.8 million US patents and their citation properties, we map the innovation network of all major US cities over the last three decades. We find that the innovation gap among cities, which was shrinking until 1980, has recently started growing, generating divergence. We develop a network model of cities that captures the knowledge spillovers within and across industries as well as within and across cities, and calibrate it using information on the patterns of patents citations. We show that the IT revolution, by reducing the cost of information exchange across cities, induced an endogenous response of the network structure of cities. This change in network structure can explain a large part of the recent divergence in innovation patterns across cities, and is consistent with a number of stylized facts about the evolution of US cities over the past thirty years.
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:1630&r=tid
  5. By: Patricia Laurens (LISIS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences, Innovations, Société - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ESIEE Paris - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique); Christian Le Bas (ESDES - École de management de Lyon - Université Catholique de Lyon); Antoine Schoen (LISIS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences, Innovations, Société - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ESIEE Paris - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique)
    Abstract: The paper deals with the determinants of worldwide IP coverage of patented inventions in large pharmaceutical firms. We support the core idea that the internationalisation of firm R&D and an economic presence in a foreign country are positive key factors which explains global IP coverage. For the global pharmaceutical industry, we estimate probit models on the probability that a patent will be expanded worldwide. We retain two categories of worldwide patent: the well-known triadic patent and the new triadic one (triadic + China + Korea). The data set encompasses the 17,633 priority patents applied for by 76 enterprises from several countries over the period 2003-2005. One important finding is that patenting in Japan sets up an important barrier, giving Japanese firms an advantage when triadic patenting is considered. For European and US firms, our estimation results confirm the idea that the level of firm R&D internationalisation is a significant explanatory factor in international IP coverage, together with control variables. We highlight an inverted U-shaped relationship between these two variables. The hypothesis related to a firm economic presence is also verified.
    Keywords: globalisation of technology,global patent coverage, pharma firms, internationalisation of R&D, strategy
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01725229&r=tid
  6. By: Kroll, Henning; Horvat, Djerdj; Jäger, Angela
    Abstract: [Introduction] In recent years, the debate on the digitalisation of industry has gained momentum not only in the political, but also in the academic sphere. As part of a broader debate on the digitisation of life, it has touched upon many relevant dynamics of industrial transformation that will, without doubt, substantially affect the way in which production as such takes place as well as the role it plays in and for diverse value chains and innovation networks. However, as much as the digitalisation debate addresses pertinent questions for future industrial innovation and production, much of it continues to suffer from a lack of clarity regarding both the very substance of the discussion and the factual consequences that it already develops in the industrial sphere. The first and arguably most pressing issue is that while the term "digitisation" succinctly captures a generic societal trend, it conveys comparatively little about the actual (catalogue of) technologies that we mean by it. A debate that moves from a general observation of "digitisation" to a more focused analysis of "industrial digitalisation" can only then yield relevant results if it is specific about the concrete technologies involved and the concrete effects in industrial innovation and production that can be expected. In the majority of cases, specific papers like this one, will only be able to address spread and effect of a certain number of digital technologies. So far, many parts of the discussion fail to deliver on these needs for differentiation not only with regard to the concrete technologies additionally deployed but also with regard to the changes in firm performance that they are supposed to trigger. While mutually related, industrial innovation and industrial production remain distinct areas on and in which the impact of "industrial digitalisation" needs to be studied separately as the set of concrete digital technologies which matter for them differs substantially. Consequently, this paper suggests that it appears reasonable to distinguish between the diverse cause-effect relationships that occur in the course of the spread of digitalisation. These need to be clearly formulated with respect to their technological foundation as well as the area of industrial activity in which change is triggered. Hence, it proposes that a structured understanding of the broad dynamic of digitalisation that we are witnessing needs to be gradually built by hypothesising, confirming and disconfirming specific relationships. Furthermore, it appears likely that "digitalisation" of industry will take effect gradually, in a step-by-step manner, as did all past breakthrough innovations from the introduction of the steam engine and, later, electricity into the production system to the various changes in the prevalent means of transportation that the past two centuries have witnessed. Typically, the invention of breakthrough technologies first spurred a development of more, related technologies before those technologies became fully implemented as prevalent means in the production system.
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fisidp:58&r=tid
  7. By: Hollenstein, Heinz
    Abstract: The study aims at providing new evidence with respect to the still unresolved question, whether the innovation behaviour of firms reflects industry-specific characteristics ("technological regime approach"), or whether it is the outcome of firm-specific strategies to gaining a competitive edge ("strategic management view"). To this end, the author firstly identifies a set of innovation strategies (cluster analysis), whose adequacy he evaluates using the "economics of innovation" as reference. Secondly, the author investigates the dynamics of innovation strategies to get some insights into structural changes of the economy. Thirdly, he examines, based on a large number of 4-digit branches, the intra-industry heterogeneity of innovation strategies. Finally, the author analyses in a production function framework the relative importance of a company's innovation strategy and its industry affiliation as determinants of firm performance. The third part of the paper tends to support the "strategic management view" (high intraindustry heterogeneity), while the final one is rather in line with the "technological regime approach" (industry affiliation is the more important factor determining firm performance). These opposite findings indicate that a company has a certain room of manoeuvre to choose an innovation strategy in line with its specific capabilities, but some structural characteristics at industry level restrict the strategic options.
    Keywords: innovation,firm-level taxonomy of innovation strategies,dynamics of innovation strategies,intra-industry heterogeneity of innovation behaviour,impact of firm strategies and industry affiliation on performance
    JEL: O30 O31 O32 O33
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201824&r=tid
  8. By: Astebro, Thomas B.; Tåg, Joacim
    Abstract: Using a dataset with over 24 million observations and the universe of more than 230,000 entries into entrepreneurship we analyze the gross (including the founders), net (excluding the founders), and new (jobs to the former unemployed or those outside the labor force) job creation by entrepreneurs two and six years after start-up. These novel measures of job creation shows that the average entrepreneur does not create any jobs for any other than him/her-self, and typically arrives from having another job. Thus, short term job creation by entrepreneurs involves a reshuffling of jobs from older to new firms rather than creating new jobs.
    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; job creation; incorporation; occupational choice; self-employment; sole proprietorship
    JEL: J24 L26
    Date: 2017–02–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1188&r=tid
  9. By: Caroline Mothe (IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc); Uyen Nguyen-Thi (LISER - Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research); Angela Triguero-Cano (Department of International Economics - University of Castilla-La Mancha)
    Abstract: Although the antecedents of environmental innovation and open innovation strategies have been well studied separately, the relationship between a firm's openness and environmental technological innovation still remains an interesting topic to research, especially in terms of the various modes of openness on the one hand and the product–process distinction on the other. This study relies on data from the French Community Innovation Survey to differentiate the association of three dimensions of open inbound innovation search strategies—acquiring, sharing, and information sourcing—with environmental product (ecoproduct) and process (ecoprocess) innovations. Inbound innovation, attained through the acquisition of machinery, equipment, and software, is more likely to be associated with ecoprocess than ecoproduct innovations; external R&D only drives ecoproducts. Inbound sharing through R&D cooperation seems associated with the introduction of both ecoproducts and ecoprocesses. For inbound innovation sourcing, external market sources of information are positively associated with firms' involvement in all types of environmental innovation.
    Keywords: R&D cooperation,Sourcing,R&D acquisition,Environmental innovation,Inbound innovation
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01701063&r=tid
  10. By: Youtie, Jan; Porter, Alan L.; Shapira, Philip; Woo, Seokkyun; Huang, Yayun
    Abstract: This report examines Germany's research and patent position in four autonomous systems: smart homes, smart factories, autonomous vehicles (non-hostile environments), and autonomous vehicles in hostile environments. Bibliometric analysis of scholarly papers indexed in the Web of Science and patent analysis of documents in Patstat and Derwent Innovation Index (representing patents from more than 40 patent authorities worldwide) are conducted for all records published in the 2002 to 2017 (May) time period. [...]
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:efisdi:142018&r=tid
  11. By: Coll Martínez, Eva
    Abstract: In recent years creativity has gained importance because of its potential to generate economic growth based on their role in the innovation processes and economic development. In this regard, this work is twofold. First, it addresses the mechanisms through which creativity promotes knowledge externalities and innovation contributing to regional economic growth and competitiveness. And second, it aims to analyse the role of creativity, diversity and innovation on entrepreneurship at a municipality level for Catalonia. To conduct this analysis, information provided by the Register of Industrial Establishments of Catalonia (REIC) – a register that includes the creation of new establishments located in Catalonia between 2002 and 2007 – , and by the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (IDESCAT) are used. Main results highlight the role of creativity in the spreading of ideas and the creation of new projects encouraging entrepreneurship at local level. However, the role of cultural diversity does not seem to be so relevant in deciding the location of new firms in Catalan municipalities. Finally, intellectual and technological productivity in the municipality (in terms of patents) favours the creation of new firms but only in municipalities closer to technologic and scientific centres. Keywords: creativity, diversity, innovation, entrepreneurship, industrial location JEL codes: O31, M14, O32, L26, O14
    Keywords: Innovacions tecnològiques -- Catalunya, Emprenedoria -- Catalunya, Localització industrial -- Catalunya, Creativitat en els negocis -- Catalunya, 332 - Economia regional i territorial. Economia del sòl i de la vivenda,
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/306521&r=tid

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