|
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Bustos, Paula; Castro Vincenzi, Juan Manuel; Monras, Joan; Ponticelli, Jacopo |
| Abstract: | The introduction of new technologies in agriculture can foster structural transformation by freeing workers who find occupation in other sectors. The traditional view is that this increase in labor supply in manufacturing can lead to industrial development. However, when workers moving to manufacturing are mostly unskilled, this process reinforces a country's comparative advantage in low-skill intensive industries. To the extent that these industries undertake less R&D, this change in industrial composition can lead to lower long-run growth. We provide empirical evidence of this mechanism using a large and exogenous increase in agricultural productivity due to the legalization of genetically engineered soy in Brazil. Our results indicate that improvements in agricultural productivity, while positive in the short-run, can generate specialization in less-innovative industries and have negative effects on productivity in the long-run. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Productivity; Brazil; Genetically Engineered Soy; labor mobility; Skill-Biased Technical Change |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13379&r=tid |
| By: | Peters, Bettina; Roberts, Mark J.; Vuong, Van Anh |
| Abstract: | In this article we study differences in the returns to R&D investment between firms that sell in international markets and firms that only sell in the domestic market. We use German firm-level data from the high-tech manufacturing sector to estimate a dynamic structural model of a firm's decision to invest in R&D and use it to measure the difference in expected long-run benefit from R&D investment for exporting and domestic firms. The results show that R&D investment leads to a higher rate of product and process innovation among exporting firms and these innovations have a larger impact on productivity improvement in export market sales. As a result, exporting firms have a higher payoff from R&D investment, invest in R&D more frequently than firms that only sell in the domestic market, and, subsequently, have higher rates of productivity growth. The endogenous investment in R&D is an important mechanism that leads to a divergence in the long-run performance of firms that differ in their export market exposure. Simulating the introduction of trade tariffs we find a substantial reduction in firms' productivity growth and incentive to invest in R&D. |
| Keywords: | R&D choice,Export,Innovation,Productivity,Dynamic structural model |
| JEL: | F14 L25 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:18047&r=tid |
| By: | Iandolo, Stefano; Ferragina, Anna Maria |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze the joint effect of persistency in innovation and export on firms’ total factor productivity (measured in accordance with Levinsohn and Petrin, 2003). For this purpose, we use data on Italian manufacturing firms covering an eight-year time span (1998-2006) which allow us to measure the effect of different time activities, both in innovation and in export and the existence of different pathways linking them. We distinguish between persistent and temporary exporting firms as well as frequent and temporary innovators, to test (through OLS and a two-step system GMM) the existence of any combined learning-by-exporting and learning-by-doing effects. We find that persistent innovation efforts seem to be associated with a permanent presence in foreign markets since persistently innovative and exporting firms have better productivity results than persistently exporting (innovating) firms with no persistent innovation (export). Combining both strategies can be an opportunity to internalize knowledge flows coming from long-lasting exposure to foreign markets. |
| Keywords: | Export,Innovation,Firms,Productivity,GMM |
| JEL: | F14 F10 F23 O30 D24 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:189680&r=tid |
| By: | Gaetan de Rassenfosse (Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne); Russell Thomson (Swinburne University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Offshoring R&D commonly invokes concerns regarding the loss of high value jobs and a hollowing out of technological capabilities, but it can also benefit domestic firms by enabling them to tap into the global technological frontier. We study the effect of R&D offshoring on industrial productivity in the home country using industry-level data for 18 OECD countries over a 26-year period. Simultaneity between productivity and R&D offshoring is addressed by using foreign tax policy as an instrument for offshored R&D. We show that R&D offshoring contributes positively to productivity in the home country, irrespective of the host country destination. |
| Keywords: | R&D offshoring, globalization, productivity, foreign R&D |
| JEL: | F23 O25 O33 O47 L6 |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iip:wpaper:5&r=tid |
| By: | Gabriel Felbermayr; Jasmin Katrin Gröschl; Marina Steininger |
| Abstract: | Exploiting changes in the geography of economic integration in Europe, this paper uses detailed bilateral trade data for 50 sectors to carry out an econometric ex post evaluation of the trade cost effects of the United Kingdom’s various arrangements with the European Union. The analysis reveals important heterogeneity across agreements, sectors, and within pairs. In particular, the EU’s eastward enlargement or the EU-Korea trade agreement have lowered the UK’s outward trade costs only relatively modestly. These asymmetries matter for the size and distribution of the welfare effects of Brexit – the withdrawal of the UK from EU agreements resulting into a return of trade costs to the situation quo ante. We make this point with the help of a modern multi-sector trade model that is able to capture inter- and intranational production networks. In line with other papers, the welfare costs of Brexit are higher in the UK than in most other EU countries. However, the considered asymmetries tend to attenuate overall costs while giving rise to substantial heterogeneity between EU27 members and sectors. |
| Keywords: | structural gravity, European trade integration, general equilibrium, quantitative trade models, Brexit |
| JEL: | F15 F17 N74 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7357&r=tid |