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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Dan Andrews; Giuseppe Nicoletti; Christina Timiliotis |
| Abstract: | Insufficient diffusion of new technologies has been quoted as one possible reason for weak productivity performance over the past two decades (Andrews et al., 2016). This paper uses a novel data set of digital technology usage covering 25 industries in 25 European countries over the 2010-16 period to explore the drivers of digital adoption across two broad sets of digital technologies by firms, cloud computing and back or front office integration. The focus is on structural and policy factors affecting firms’ capabilities and incentives to adopt -- including the availability of enabling infrastructures (such as high-speed broadband internet), managerial quality and workers skills, and product, labour and financial market settings. We identify the effects of structural and policy factors based on the difference-in-difference approach pioneered by Rajan and Zingales (1998) and show that a number of these factors are statistically and economically significant for technology adoption. Specifically, we find strong support for the hypothesis that low managerial quality, lack of ICT skills and poor matching of workers to jobs curb digital technology adoption and hence the rate of diffusion. Similarly our evidence suggests that policies affecting market incentives are important for adoption, especially those relevant for market access, competition and efficient reallocation of labour and capital. Finally, we show that there are important complementarities between the two sets of factors, with market incentives reinforcing the positive effects of enhancements in firm capabilities on adoption of digital technologies |
| Keywords: | diffusion, digital skills, Digital technologies, productivity |
| JEL: | D24 J24 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2018–07–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1476-en&r=tid |
| By: | Galasso, Alberto; Luo, Hong |
| Abstract: | Liability laws designed to compensate for harms caused by defective products may also affect innovation incentives. This paper examines this issue, exploiting a major quasi-exogenous increase in liability risk faced by US suppliers of polymers used to manufacture medical devices implanted in human bodies. Difference-in-differences analyses suggest that the surge in liability risk had a large and negative impact on downstream innovation in medical implants but no significant effect on upstream polymer patenting. These findings show how tort laws may affect the development of new technologies and how liability risk may percolate through an industry's vertical chain. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; medical devices; product liability; tort; vertical foreclosure |
| JEL: | K13 O31 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13036&r=tid |
| By: | Øivind Anti Nilsen; Arvid Raknerud; Diana-Cristina Iancu |
| Abstract: | We analyse all the major sources of direct and indirect R&D subsidies in Norway in the period 2002-2013 and compare their effects on individual firms’ performance. Firms that received support are matched with a control group of firms that did not receive support using a combination of stratification and propensity score matching. Changes in performance indicators before and after support in the treatment group are compared with contemporaneous changes in the control group. We find that the average effects of R&D support among those who obtained grants and/or subsidies are positive and significant in terms of performance indicators related to economic growth: value added, sales revenue and number of employees. The estimated effects are larger for start-up firms than incumbent firms when the effects are measured as relative effects (in percentage points), but smaller when these effects are translated into level effects. Finally, we do not find positive effects on return to total assets or productivity for firms who received support compared with the control group. |
| Keywords: | public policy, firm performance, treatment effects, stratification, propensity score matching, productivity |
| JEL: | C33 C52 D24 O38 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7131&r=tid |
| By: | Giovanni Marin (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna); Francesco Vona (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | The political acceptability of climate policies is undermined by job-killing arguments, especially for the least-skilled workers. However, evidence for distributional impacts for different workers remains scant. We examine the associations between climate policies, proxied by energy prices and a stringency index, and workforce skills for 14 European countries and 15 industrial sectors over the period of 1995-2011. We find that, while the long-term decline in employment in most carbon-intensive sectors is unrelated to policy stringency, climate policies have been skill biased against manual workers and have favoured technicians and professionals. This skill bias is confirmed using a shift-share instrumental variable estimator |
| Keywords: | Climate policies; Workforce skills; Cluster analysis; Multiple exposure to structural shocks |
| JEL: | J24 Q52 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5ahh4t5kfl8nprei89ignlk5nl&r=tid |
| By: | Michael Webb; Nick Short; Nicholas Bloom; Josh Lerner |
| Abstract: | Patenting in software, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence has grown rapidly in recent years. Such patents are acquired primarily by large US technology firms such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and HP, as well as by Japanese multinationals such as Sony, Canon, and Fujitsu. Chinese patenting in the US is small but growing rapidly, and world-leading for drone technology. Patenting in machine learning has seen exponential growth since 2010, although patenting in neural networks saw a strong burst of activity in the 1990s that has only recently been surpassed. In all technological fields, the number of patents per inventor has declined near-monotonically, except for large increases in inventor productivity in software and semiconductors in the late 1990s. In most high-tech fields, Japan is the only country outside the US with significant US patenting activity; however, whereas Japan played an important role in the burst of neural network patenting in the 1990s, it has not been involved in the current acceleration. Comparing the periods 1970-89 and 2000-15, patenting in the current period has been primarily by entrant assignees, with the exception of neural networks. |
| JEL: | L86 O34 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24793&r=tid |
| By: | Ludovic Dibiaggio (SKEMA Business School; Université Côte d’Azur; GREDEG CNRS); Benjamin Montmartin (SKEMA Business School; Université Côte d’Azur; OFCE Sciences.Po; GREDEG CNRS); Lionel Nesta (Université Côte d’Azur; GREDEG CNRS; OFCE Sciences.Po) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies highlight an increasing within-country divergence in regional performance. This paper develops the concept of regional alignment to suggest that synergistic relations among the scientific expertise, technological specialization and industry composition of regions affect regional productivity growth. In this paper, we test an extended conditional beta-convergence model using data on 94 French departments (NUTS3) for the period 2001-2011. Our results indicate that a conditional beta-convergence is associated with a sigma-divergence process in the total factor productivity (TFP) growth of French regions. This process is strongly affected by the level of regional alignment. Indeed, we find evidence that regional alignment both directly and indirectly influences regional productivity growth. The indirect effect of regional alignment materializes through its leverage on R&D investment, which is one of the most important drivers of productivity growth. Moreover, using a heterogeneous coefficients model, we show that the positive effect of regional alignment on TFP growth increases with the industrial and technological diversity of regions, which suggests that regional alignment increases the value of Jacobs externalities more than Marshall-Arrow-Romer (MAR) externalities. |
| Keywords: | Regional Alignment, beta-convergence, productivity growth, multi-regional model |
| JEL: | R11 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2018-18&r=tid |
| By: | Gordon, Robert J |
| Abstract: | U. S. economic growth slowed by more than half from 3.2 percent per year during 1970-2006 to only 1.4 percent during 2006-16, and this decline was divided equally between slower growth in hours of work and slower growth in output per hour. In explaining slower growth in hours, particular emphasis is placed on the slower secular rise of life expectancy in the U.S. compared to other developed countries. Further contributions to slowing growth are made by a decline in the population share of both legal and illegal immigration and a turnaround from rising to declining labor force participation. Causes of declining productivity growth begin with the slowdown in the rate of increase of educational attainment. Why did productivity growth decline after 2006 despite an increase in the rate at which new U.S. patents were issued in 2006-16 compared to earlier decades? Part of the slowdown is attributed to the maturity of the IT revolution, which also helps to explain the trajectory of the college wage premium. Aspects of the productivity growth slowdown include the declining productivity of research workers, diminishing returns to drug innovation, and the evolutionary rather than revolutionary impact of robots and artificial intelligence. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth; Immigration; Innovation; labor force participation; Mortality; productivity |
| JEL: | D24 E24 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13039&r=tid |
| By: | Pedro Carvalho |
| Abstract: | This paper presents empirical evidence on the impact of competition on firm productivity for the Portuguese economy. To that effect, firm-level panel data comprising information between 2010 and 2015 gathered from the Integrated Business Accounts System (Portuguese acronym: SCIE) is used. The database enables the construction of economic and financial indicators, which allow for isolating the impact of competition on firm-level productivity. We find a positive relationship between competition and both total factor productivity and labor productivity. This relationship is found to be robust to different specifications and in accordance with the results in the literature obtained for other countries. |
| Keywords: | Competition, Productivity, Portugal |
| JEL: | D40 D24 O47 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mde:wpaper:00108&r=tid |