|
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Antonin Bergeaud; Gilbert Cette; Rémy Lecat; Hélène Maghin |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we identify two counteracting effects of credit access on productivity growth: on the one hand, better access to credit makes it easier for entrepreneurs to innovate; on the other hand, better credit access allows less efficient incumbent firms to remain longer on the market, thereby discouraging entry of new and potentially more efficient innovators. We first develop a simple model of firm dynamics and innovation-based growth with credit constraints, where the above two counteracting effects generate an inverted-U relationship between credit access and productivity growth. Then, we test our theory on a comprehensive French manufacturing firmlevel dataset. We first show evidence of an inverted-U relationship between credit constraints and productivity growth when we aggregate our data at sectoral level. We then move to firm-level analysis, and show that incumbent firms with easier access to credit experience higher productivity growth, but that they also experienced lower exit rates, particularly the least productive firms among them. To confirm our results, we exploit the 2012 Eurosystem's Additional Credit Claims (ACC) program as a quasi-experiment that generated exogenous extra supply of credits for a subset of incumbent firms. |
| Keywords: | credit constraint, firms, growth, interest rate, productivity. |
| JEL: | G21 G32 O40 O47 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:696&r=tid |
| By: | IINO Takashi; INOUE Hiroyasu; SAITO Yukiko; TODO Yasuyuki |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the research collaboration of firms affects the quality of their innovation outcomes using comprehensive patent data for firms in the world from 1991 to 2010. Identifying research collaboration by co-patenting relationships, we find that research collaboration with other firms, particularly with foreign firms, leads to substantial improvement in innovation quality. We also observe an inverted U-shaped effect of the density of a firm's ego network and a positive effect of brokerage in the global network, especially for firms with international collaboration experiences. These results are applicable to the effect on the quality of innovation achieved individually without any collaboration, suggesting that the knowledge of firms diffuses to and is acquired by their collaboration partners. Finally, we find that the collaboration effect is larger in the 2000s than in the 1990s and varies across countries. |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:18070&r=tid |
| By: | Roberto Camerani (University of Sussex); Daniele Rotolo (University of Sussex); Nicola Grassano (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | We examine corporate publishing - i.e. firms' involvement in the production of scientific publications - with two research questions. First, why do firms publish? Through systematic literature review, we propose a framework of five incentives for firms to publish: (i) accessing external knowledge and resources; (ii) attracting and retaining researchers; (iii) signalling and reputation building; (iv) supporting IP strategies; and (v) supporting commercialization strategies. Second, how does firms' engagement in publishing differ across sectors? Variation in corporate publishing has not yet been comprehensively characterized in the literature. We present an empirical analysis of the publication activity of a global sample of 2,500 firms (and the 570,000 directly owned subsidiaries of these firms) operating in 20 industrial sectors. We find that corporate publishing is widespread, though considerable heterogeneity exists within and between sectors. Most firms (84%) in our sample contributed to at least one publication from 2011 to 2015. The number of firms' publications grew over the observation period (2.3% on a yearly basis), though not as fast as the global science output in general. Firms' publications are often co-authored with researchers at academic institutions (58%) and are cited more than expected (about 12% of firms' articles are within the top 10% most cited articles). We conclude by proposing a taxonomy of sectors based on their R&D investment intensity and publication activity. |
| Keywords: | corporate publishing; incentives to publish; firm researchers; knowledge disclosure; defensive publishing; scientific publications; taxonomy |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201805&r=tid |
| By: | Divella, Marialuisa; Sterlacchini, Alessandro |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we focus on public procurement for innovation. We provide a broad characterization of the firms involved in “innovative public procurement” as opposed to firms participating in “regular” (i.e. non innovative) public procurement, including those firms that perform innovation in an autonomous way (i.e. not related to public procurement). Moreover, we identify the main determinants of the firms’ propensity to innovate, when innovative activities are related to a public procurement contract. We carry out this study by using micro-data from two Community Innovation Surveys for Italian and Norwegian firms, which have released information on firms having public procurement contracts. Our main findings highlight important differences between firms engaged in regular or innovative public procurement, in particular regarding the role of firm size and sectors, the presence of in-house R&D activities and the educational level of employees. |
| Keywords: | public procurement, firms’ innovation, Italy, Norway |
| JEL: | H57 O31 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2018–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:89592&r=tid |
| By: | Ufuk Akcigit; Salomé Baslandze; Francesca Lotti |
| Abstract: | Do political connections affect firm dynamics, innovation, and creative destruction? We study Italian firms and their workers to answer this question. Our analysis uses a brand-new dataset, spanning the period from 1993 to 2014, where we merge: (i) firm-level balance sheet data; (ii) social security data on the universe of workers; (iii) patent data from the European Patent Office; (iv) the national registry of local politicians; and (v) detailed data on local elections in Italy. We find that firm-level political connections are widespread, especially among large firms, and that industries with a larger share of politically connected firms feature worse firm dynamics. We identify a leadership paradox: When compared to their competitors, market leaders are much more likely to be politically connected, but much less likely to innovate. In addition, political connections relate to a higher rate of survival, as well as growth in employment and revenue, but not in productivity – a result that we also confirm using a regression discontinuity design. We build a firm dynamics model, where we allow firms to invest in innovation and/or political connection to advance their productivity and to overcome certain market frictions. Our model highlights a new interaction between static gains and dynamic losses from rent-seeking in aggregate productivity. |
| JEL: | D70 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25136&r=tid |
| By: | Matthew Grennan; Charu Gupta; Mara Lederman |
| Abstract: | When firms span related product categories, spillovers across categories become central to firm strategy and industrial policy, due to their potential to foreclose competition and affect innovation incentives. We exploit major new product innovations in one medical device category, and detailed sales data across related categories, to develop a causal research design for spillovers at the customer level. We find evidence of spillovers, primarily associated with complementarities in usage. These spillovers imply large benefits to multi- vs. single-category firms, accounting for nearly one quarter of sales in the complimentary category (equivalent to four percent of revenue in the focal category). |
| JEL: | D22 D4 D43 D62 I11 K21 L1 L13 L25 L38 L4 L5 M2 M21 O25 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25183&r=tid |
| By: | YAMAUCHI Isamu |
| Abstract: | The patentability of software dramatically expanded in the United States, European Union, and Japan during the 1990s. Using the exogenous policy change, this paper identifies the causal effect of filing software patents through the policy reform on the firms' subsequent growth. We find that small software firms as well as large firms increase software patent applications due to the expansion of patentable subject matter. However, the results show that such patent explosion has an insignificant effect on larger firms' performance, while it improves the subsequent performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We also find that the number of patent attorneys in the same prefecture has a significant effect only for small firms, which is the main driving factor of improving the firm's performance. These results suggest that broadening the scope of software patents does contribute to innovation, especially for SMEs with a small patent portfolio and business assets through decreasing the cost of patenting activity. |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:18063&r=tid |
| By: | Aleksandra Parteka (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland); Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland) |
| Abstract: | By using very rich individual-level data on workers from 28 European countries, we provide the first so extensive cross-country assessment of wage response to global production links within global value chains (GVCs) in the period 2005–2014. Unlike the other studies, we (i) address the importance of backward links in globally integrated production structures (capturing imports of goods and services required in any stage of the production of the final product); (ii) measure the occupational task profile of workers with new country-specific indices of routinisation; (iii) compare the impact of global production links on wages between workers from Western, Central–Eastern, and Southern Europe employed in manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors; and (iv) account for direct and indirect dependence on GVC imports from developing and high-income countries. We consider the potential endogeneity problems. Our results suggest that global import intensity of production exhibits negative pressure on wages in Europe. This effect mainly concerns workers from Western Europe employed in manufacturing and is driven by production links with non-high-income countries. Our counterfactual estimates suggest that the effect for all of Europe is small, but the pressure of GVC imports on wages in Western Europe is not economically negligible, in particular when inputs are from less developed countries including China. |
| Keywords: | wages, global value chains, global import intensity of production, tasks, EU |
| JEL: | F14 F16 J31 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gdk:wpaper:51&r=tid |
| By: | Nicoló Barbieri; François Perruchas; Davide Consoli |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses whether and to what extent regional related and unrelated variety matter for the development of green technology, and whether their influence differs over the technology life-cycle. Using patent and socio-economic data on a thirty- year (1980-2009) panel of US States, our study finds that unrelated variety is a positive predictor of green innovative activities. When unpacked over the life cycle, we find that unrelated variety is the main driver of green technology development in early stages while related variety becomes more prominent as the technology enters into maturity. |
| Keywords: | Green technology; Technology life-cycle; Regional Diversification |
| JEL: | O33 Q55 R11 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1838&r=tid |