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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Robert J. Gordon; Hassan Sayed |
| Abstract: | By merging KLEMS data sets and aggregating over the ten largest Western European nations (EU-10), we are able to compare and contrast productivity growth up through 2015 starting from 1950 in the U.S. and from 1972 in the EU-10. Data are provided at the aggregate level, as well as for 16 industry groups within the total economy and 11 manufacturing sub-industries. The analysis focuses on outcomes over four time intervals: 1950-72, 1972-95, 1995-2005, and 2005-15. We interpret the EU-10 performance as catching up to the U.S. in stages, with its rapid growth of 1950-72 representing a delayed adoption of the inventions that propelled U.S. productivity growth in the first half of the 20th century, and the next EU-10 stage for 1972-95 as imitating the U.S. outcome for 1950-72. We show that both the pace of aggregate productivity growth during 1972-95 for the EU-10 as well as its industrial composition matched very closely the growth record of the U.S. in the previous 1950-72 time interval. A striking finding is that for the total economy the “early-to-late” productivity growth slowdown from 1972-95 to 2005-15 in the EU-10 (-1.68 percentage points) was almost identical to the U.S. slowdown from 1950-72 to 2005-15 (-1.67 percentage points). There is a very high EU-U.S. correlation in the magnitude of the early-to-late slowdown across industries. This supports our overall theme that the productivity growth slowdown from the early postwar years to the most recent decade was due to a retardation in technical change that affected the same industries by roughly the same magnitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. |
| JEL: | E01 E24 O33 O47 O51 O52 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25703&r=all |
| By: | Zsófia L. Bárány; Christian Siegel |
| Abstract: | We study the origins of labor productivity growth and its differences across sectors. In our model, sectors employ workers of different occupations and various forms of capital, none of which are perfect substitutes, and technology evolves at the sector-factor cell level. Using the model we infer technologies from US data over 1960-2017. We find sector-specific routine labor augmenting technological change to be crucial. It is the most important driver of sectoral differences, and has a large and increasing contribution to aggregate labor productivity growth. Neither capital accumulation nor the occupational employment structure within sectors explains much of the sectoral differences. |
| Keywords: | biased technological change; structural transformation; labor productivity |
| JEL: | O41 O33 J24 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1901&r=all |
| By: | Miroudot, Sébastien (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | Many studies discuss the “de-industrialization” or “servicification” of economies in both developed and developing countries. Such studies rely on statistics that distinguish a manufacturing from a service sector. But in the age of global value chains (GVCs), it becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle manufacturing from service activities. Goods are produced with services, services are produced with goods, some manufacturing firms are factory-less, and companies tend to sell solutions to customers by bundling goods with services. This business reality has important implications for trade and industry analysis. Against this backdrop, the paper introduces a taxonomy of service activities in GVCs and describes the main statistical challenges in assessing the contribution of manufacturing and services to output, value added, or trade. It then reviews three approaches that take GVCs into account in the analysis of income, comparative advantage, and productivity to address these challenges. As statisticians are working on improving the framework for understanding global production, policymakers should be aware of the blurring lines between goods and services. |
| Keywords: | de-industrialization; servicification; global value chains |
| JEL: | F14 F23 L60 L80 |
| Date: | 2019–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0927&r=all |
| By: | Fitjar, Rune Dahl; Haus-Reve, Silje; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés |
| Abstract: | Product innovation is widely thought to benefit from collaboration with both scientific and supply-chain partners. The combination of exploration and exploitation capacity, and of scientific and experience-based knowledge, are expected to yield multiplicative effects. However, the assumption that scientific and supply-chain collaboration are complementary and reinforce firm-level innovation has not been examined empirically. This paper tests this assumption on an unbalanced panel sample of 8337 firm observations in Norway, covering the period 2006â??2010. The results of the econometric analysis go against the orthodoxy. They show that Norwegian firms do not benefit from doing "more of all" on their road to innovation. While individually both scientific and supply-chain collaboration improve the chances of firm-level innovation, there is a significant negative interaction between them. This implies that scientific and supply-chain collaboration, in contrast to what has been often highlighted, are substitutes rather than complements. The results are robust to the introduction of different controls and hold for all tested innovation outcomes: product innovation, new-to-market product innovation, and share of turnover from new products. |
| Keywords: | firms; Innovation; Interaction; Norway; scientific and supply-chain collaboration |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13622&r=all |
| By: | Andrea Bellucci (European Commission - Joint Research Centre and MoFiR); Luca Pennacchio (Università di Napoli Parthenope); Alberto Zazzaro (University of Naples Federico II, CSEF and MoFiR.) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the impact of public subsidies for research and development (R&D) on the debt financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It examines a public program implemented in the Marche region of Italy during the period 2005–2012. The study combines matching methods with a difference-in-difference estimator to examine whether receiving public subsidies affects total indebtedness, the structure and cost of debt of awarded firms. The results indicate that R&D subsidies modify firms’ (especially young firms’) debt structure in favor of long-term financing, and help firms to limit the average cost of debt. Subsidies also foster the use of bank financing, but do not affect the overall level of debt. Taken together, these findings suggest that public funding of SMEs’ innovation projects plays a certification role in access to external financial resources for firms receiving subsidies. |
| Keywords: | R&D subsidies; Finance gap; Debt financing; Debt structure; Certification effects; Resource effect. |
| JEL: | G30 H25 O31 O38 R58 |
| Date: | 2019–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:527&r=all |
| By: | Akçomak, Ibrahim Semih (TEKPOL, Middle East Technical University); Bürken, Serkan (TEKPOL, Middle East Technical University) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that Turkey has fallen into a middle-technology trap on the borders of a weak innovation system (IS) and strong global value chains (GVCs). Detailed information from a primary R&D and innovation funding agency is used to show that the technological characteristics of the funded automotive R&D and innovation projects remained reasonably stable between 1995 and 2011. This result is cross-validated with two qualitative designs on beneficiary firms and automotive industry experts. The qualitative designs aided in identifying three mechanisms that explain how the Turkish automotive industry has fallen into a middle-technology trap. Analysis at the project, firm, and expert levels indicate that despite extensive upgrading and learning in manufacturing, the automotive industry has failed to build innovation capabilities. Turkey's delegated role in the automotive GVC, the joint venture (JV) structure and the lack of complementarities collectively work in creating a trap that impedes further technological development. |
| Keywords: | Middle-technology trap, automotive industry, technology, innovation, Turkey |
| JEL: | O12 O25 O33 L62 |
| Date: | 2019–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2019006&r=all |
| By: | Michael Peneder (WIFO); Mark Thompson; Martin Wörter |
| Abstract: | We test whether intellectual property rights foster or hinder innovation by estimating IV structural equations for a large sample of Swiss firms. We find that better appropriability conditions at the industry level raise the number of competitors. However, conditional on the given industry structure, individual firms face fewer competitors, if they actually use intellectual property rights. The further impact of fewer competitors is to raise R&D, when initial competition is strong, but to reduce it, when initial competition is weak ("inverted U"). |
| Keywords: | patents, innovation, competition, simultaneous system |
| Date: | 2019–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2019:i:577&r=all |
| By: | Békés, Gábor; Harasztosi, Péter |
| Abstract: | In less developed economies import can be the primary source of adopting new technologies in the form of modern production equipment. This paper explores the spread of manufacturing machinery across locations and investigates the effects of previous importers on the firms' decision to import certain types of foreign machines. Using a uniquely compiled Hungarian firm-level dataset for the 1992-2003 period, we find that the probability of importing a particular piece of sector specific machinery is positively affected by the presence of local firms previously importing the same machine. A similar pattern is found with regards to the choice of source country. While these results offer evidence of positive externalities, we find that these benefits are concentrated in large and foreign owned companies. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration; impact of technology adoption; machine imports; trade-related spillovers |
| JEL: | D22 F14 R12 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13623&r=all |