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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Pellegrino, Gabriele; Piva, Mariacristina; Vivarelli, Marco |
| Abstract: | In this work, we test the employment impact of distinct types of innovative investments using a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 2002-2013. Our GMM-SYS estimates generate various results, which are partially in contrast with the extant literature. Indeed, estimations carried out on the entire sample do not provide statistically significant evidence of the expected labor-friendly nature of innovation. More in detail, neither R&D nor investment in innovative machineries and equipment (the so-called embodied technological change, ETC) turn out to have any significant employment effect. However, the job-creation impact of R&D expenditures becomes highly significant when the focus is limited to the high-tech firms. On the other hand - and interestingly - ETC exhibits its labor-saving nature when SMEs are singled out. |
| Keywords: | Innovation,R&D,Embodied Technological Change,Employment,GMM-SYS |
| JEL: | O33 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:214&r=tid |
| By: | Elena Grinza; Francesco Quatraro |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore the impact of a firm's workers' replacements on innovation performance, by using rich matched employer-employee panel data for the Veneto region of Italy. We take the well-known resource-based theory of the firm as our departure point, and develop a set of hypotheses which we test empirically with negative binomial regressions. Coherently with our theoretical framework, we find that workers' replacements significantly dampen innovation performance, because they generate losses in the tacit knowledge base of the firm. We also nd that workers' replacements are especially detrimental to large and young rms, because large companies have more hierarchical rigidities and innovative capabilities in young rms are mostly dependent on specific human capital. Finally, our results show that firms' localization in industrial districts significantly mitigates the negative impact of workers' replacements, and that a similar picture emerges when firms are more exposed to knowledge spillovers, particularly of related knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Workers' replacements, excess worker turnover, innovation performance, tacit knowledge, knowledge spillovers, employer-employee matched longitudinal data. |
| JEL: | J63 O30 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:550&r=tid |
| By: | Bachmann, Ronald (RWI); Cim, Merve (RWI); Green, Colin (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)) |
| Abstract: | The past four decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the structure of employment. In particular, the rapid increase in computational power has led to large-scale reductions in employment in jobs that can be described as intensive in routine tasks. These jobs have been shown to be concentrated in middle skill occupations. A large literature on labour market polarisation characterises and measures these processes at an aggregate level. However to date there is little information regarding the individual worker adjustment processes related to routine-biased technological change. Using an administrative panel data set for Germany, we follow workers over an extended period of time and provide evidence of both the short-term adjustment process and medium-run effects of routine task intensive job loss at an individual level. We initially demonstrate a marked, and steady, shift in employment away from routine, middle-skill, occupations. In subsequent analysis, we demonstrate how exposure to jobs with higher routine task content is associated with a reduced likelihood of being in employment in both the short term (after one year) and medium term (five years). This employment penalty to routineness of work has increased over the past four decades. More generally, we demonstrate that routine task work is associated with reduced job stability and more likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment. However, these negative effects of routine work appear to be concentrated in increased employment to employment, and employment to unemployment transitions rather than longer periods of unemployment. |
| Keywords: | polarization, occupational mobility, worker flows, tasks |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J62 E24 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11570&r=tid |
| By: | Benjamin W. Pugsley; Peter Sedlacek; Vincent Sterk |
| Abstract: | Only half of all startups survive past the age of five and surviving businesses grow at vastly different speeds. Using micro data on employment in the population of U.S. Businesses, we estimate that the lion's share of these differences is driven by ex-ante heterogeneity across firms, rather than by ex-post shocks. We embed such heterogeneity in a firm dynamics model and study how ex-ante differences shape the distribution of firm size, "up-or-out" dynamics, and the associated gains in aggregate output. "Gazelles" - a small subset of startups with particularly high growth potential - emerge as key drivers of these outcomes. Analyzing changes in the distribution of ex-ante firm heterogeneity over time reveals that the birth rate and growth potential of gazelles has declined, creating substantial aggregate losses. |
| Keywords: | Firm Dynamics, Startups, Macroeconomics, Big Data |
| JEL: | D22 E23 E24 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:18-30&r=tid |
| By: | Sourav Bhattacharya; Pavel Chakraborty; Chirantan Chatterjee |
| Abstract: | We use The Patents (Amendment) Act, 2002 in India as a quasi-natural experiment to identify the causal e¤ect of higher incentives for innovation on firm organizational features. We find that stronger intellectual property (IP) protection has a sharper impact on technologically advanced firms, i.e., firms that were a-priori above the industry median in terms of technology adoption. While there is an overall increase in managers' share of compensation, this increase is about 1.6-1.7% more for high-tech firms. This difference can be attributed to a larger increase in performance pay for high-tech firms. The reform also leads to a significant increase in number of managerial layers and number of divisions for high-tech firms relative to low-tech firms, but only the latter effect is correlated with the differential change in managerial compensation. Broadly, we demonstrate that stronger IP protection leads to an increase in both within-firm and between-firm wage inequality, with more robust evidence for between-firm inequality. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual Property Regimes, High-tech and Low-tech firms, Managerial Com- pensation, Span of Control |
| JEL: | D21 D23 L23 O34 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:240829812&r=tid |
| By: | Petros Gkotsis (European Commission - JRC); Antonio Vezzani (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | In this work, we develop and apply a methodology to estimate technology-specific R&D investments at firm level and then use these to test some arguments that have become central in the innovation literature. In particular, we first combine R&D investments with patent data of the world top R&D investors worldwide and show that investment per patent varies greatly both across technologies and across firms developing the same technology. We then use the estimated firm-technology R&D investments to assess how these are related to the international and technological strategies of firms. The estimation strategy makes use of a multilevel framework that allows us to model heterogeneity both at the firm and industry level. In particular, we show that specific firms strategies requires different level of investments and that sector specificities matter in determining R&D per patent investments, economies of scale in knowledge production, and the cost of (further) specialization. Accounting for (un)observed heterogeneity may lead to better policy design and management decisions. |
| Keywords: | patents, R&D, technology, cost, heterogeneity, internationalization |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201804&r=tid |
| By: | Akira Kohsaka (Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University); Jun-ichi Shinkai (Faculty of Business Administration Kinki University) |
| Abstract: | Despite generally solid growth in East Asia since the 1980s, there remain large differences in productivity across the economies. Focusing on convergence in industrial productivities, this paper examines their convergence processes. We decompose industrial productivity growth into intra-industry productivity growth and inter-industry reallocation of resources. We find that, as contrasting to ANIEs (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan), ASEAN4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand) have not shown persistent industrial productivity convergence nor persistent structural transformation toward industrialization, while China’s productivity growth shows some magnified version of those of Korea and Taiwan. In other words, we argue that ANIEs and ASEAN4 make two distinct groups in terms of aggregate and sectoral productivity convergence. |
| Keywords: | East Asia, productivity growth, structural transformation, sectoral productivity growth, inter-industry reallocation, productivity convergence. |
| JEL: | O4 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osp:wpaper:18e009&r=tid |