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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Jaan Masso; Amaresh K Tiwari |
| Abstract: | In this paper, using Estonian Community Innovation Survey data, we study the role of R&D, capital accumulation, and innovation output on productivity for entrants and incumbents. We find that the impact of R&D investment on labour productivity is larger for the entrants com- pared to the incumbents. Entrants are found to be more productive and more heterogeneous in their total factor productivity (TFP) than the incumbents. Moreover, entrants who innovate are on average, in terms of TFP, 25% more productive than the entrants who do not, while the corresponding figure for the incumbents is 7%. In addition, it is mostly the incumbents who benefit from within-industry knowledge that is produced outside their own firm. Finally, for both entrants and incumbents, embodied technological change through capital accumulation is found to be more effective in generating productivity growth than R&D expenditure. |
| Keywords: | R&D, Innovation, Productivity, Entrants, Incumbents, Spillovers |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:130&r=all |
| By: | Costantiello, Alberto; Laureti, Lucio; De Cristoforo, Gianluca; Leogrande, Angelo |
| Abstract: | In this article we investigate the innovation-sales growth nexus in Europe. We use data from European Innovation Scoreboard of the European Commission in the period 2000-2019 for 36 countries. Data are analyzed using Panel Data with Random Effects, Fixed Effects, Dynamic Panel at 1 Stage, Pooled OLS, WLS. Results show that the impact of innovation on sales in Europe is positively associated with “Share Knowledge-Intensive Services”, “Turnover of Share Large Enterprises”, “Employment Impacts”, “Innovators”, “Intellectual Assets”, “Linkages” and is negatively associated with “Enterprise Births”, “Government Procurement of Advanced Technology Products”, “Share of Employment in High and Medium high-tech Manufacturing”. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Open Innovation, Research and Development, Sales Growht, Firm Performance |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O32 O33 O34 O35 |
| Date: | 2021–03–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:106858&r=all |
| By: | Joachim Hubmer; Pascual Restrepo |
| Abstract: | The decline in the U.S. labor share is far from uniform across firms. While the aggregate labor share has declined, especially in manufacturing, retail, and wholesale, the labor share of a typical firm in these industries has risen. This paper studies the dynamics of the substitution of capital for labor at the firm level and its implications for market structure and labor shares. We introduce a model of firm dynamics where firms make costly upfront investments to adopt the capital-intensive technologies required to automate additional tasks. Following a decline in the price of capital, large firms automate more of their tasks and become more capital intensive; while the median firm continues to operate a more labor-intensive technology. In line with firm-level data, our model generates transitions in which the labor share of the median firm increases at the same time as the aggregate labor share declines. We use an extension of our model that allows for endogenous markups to study the role of rising competition and reallocation towards more productive and higher-markup firms as another driver of the decline in the labor share during 1982–2012. We provide a quantitative decomposition showing that reallocation played a minor role in explaining the decline in the labor share in U.S. manufacturing but an important role in retail and other sectors. The substitution of labor with cheaper capital in a widening range of tasks played a more dominant role in explaining the decline of the manufacturing labor share. |
| JEL: | E22 E23 E24 E25 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28579&r=all |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Reda Cherif; Fuad Hasanov |
| Abstract: | We show empirical evidence that there may not be a tradeoff between market income inequality and high sustained growth, which is key for poverty alleviation. We argue that the economies that achieved high sustained growth and low market income inequality are characterized by dynamism—a drive toward sophisticated export industries, innovation, and creative destruction and a high level of competition. What a country produces and how much it competes domestically and internationally are important for achieving fair and inclusive markets. We explore policy options to steer industrial and market structures toward providing growth opportunities for both workers and firms. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality;Inclusive growth;Competition;Income;Income distribution;Inequality,creative destruction,market power,industrial policy,sophistication,innovation,manufacturing,WP,monopsony power,panel data,supply firm,laggard firm,technology company |
| Date: | 2021–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2021/029&r=all |
| By: | Ron Boschma; |
| Abstract: | Non-local linkages are considered to be crucial for innovation in regions because they provide access to new knowledge and ideas. This helps places to avoid or overcome lock-in situations. The cluster literature has focused on gatekeepers that may diffuse non-local knowledge to cluster firms. In the global city literature, this gatekeeping role is taken up by multinational enterprises and knowledge-intensive-business-services. However, little attention has yet been focused on the nature of these non-local linkages. Not all non-linkages matter for the capacity of a region to innovate. What matters in particular is the extent to which types of knowledge that flow through non-local linkages are complementary to the local knowledge base. What matters is not being connected to other regions per se, but being linked to regions that give access to complementary capabilities. Also inflows of external agents are crucial for regional innovation, especially for more radical innovations. |
| Keywords: | non-local linkages, geography of innovation, relatedness, global innovation networks, complementary inter-regional linkages |
| JEL: | O25 O38 R11 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2113&r=all |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Reda Cherif; Fuad Hasanov |
| Abstract: | We provide an overview of the theories and empricial evidence on the complex relationship among innovation, competition, and inclusive growth. Competition and innovation-led growth are critical to drive productivity gains and support broad-based growth. However, new technologies and trends in market concentration are stifling future innovation while contributing to the marked increase in inequality. Beyond consumer welfare in a narrow market, competition policy should adapt to this new reality by considering the spillover and dynamic effects of market power, especially on firm entry, innovation, and inequality. Innovation policies should tackle not only government failures but also market failures. |
| Date: | 2021–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2021/080&r=all |
| By: | John (Jianqiu) Bai; Erik Brynjolfsson; Wang Jin; Sebastian Steffen; Chi Wan |
| Abstract: | Digital technologies may make some tasks, jobs and firms more resilient to unanticipated shocks. We extract data from over 200 million U.S. job postings to construct an index for firms' resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic by assessing the work-from-home (WFH) feasibility of their labor demand. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that public firms with high pre-pandemic WFH index values had significantly higher sales, net incomes, and stock returns than their peers during the pandemic. Our results indicate that firms with higher digital resilience, as measured through our pre-pandemic WFH index, performed significantly better in general, and in non-essential industries in particular, where WFH feasibility was necessary to continue operation. The ability to use digital technologies to work remotely also mattered more in non-high-tech industries than in high-tech ones. Lastly, we find evidence that firms with lower pre-pandemic WFH feasibility attempted to catch up to their more resilient competitors via greater software investment. This is consistent with a complementarity between digital technologies and WFH practices. Our study's results are robust to a variety of empirical specifications and provide a first look at how WFH practices improved resilience to a major, unanticipated social and economic shock. |
| JEL: | D23 J21 L0 L25 O0 O33 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28588&r=all |
| By: | Link, Albert (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes relationships within the technology transfer process at U.S. federal laboratories. Using federal laboratory data on R&D, invention disclosures, and patent applications, aggregated to the agency level, quantitative estimates of the relationship among these metrics are presented. The policy-related finding is that a 10 percent increase in R&D per 100 scientists is associated with between a 1.52 percent and a 2.04 percent increase in patent applications per 100 scientists. |
| Keywords: | Technology transfer; Federal laboratory; R&D; STEM employees; Policy evaluation; |
| JEL: | H42 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–03–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2021_002&r=all |
| By: | Otto K\"assi; Vili Lehdonvirta; Fabian Stephany |
| Abstract: | An unknown number of people around the world are earning income by working through online labour platforms such as Upwork and Amazon Mechanical Turk. We combine data collected from various sources to build a data-driven assessment of the number of such online workers (also known as online freelancers) globally. Our headline estimate is that there are 163 million freelancer profiles registered on online labour platforms globally. Approximately 19 million of them have obtained work through the platform at least once, and 5 million have completed at least 10 projects or earned at least $1000. These numbers suggest a substantial growth from 2015 in registered worker accounts, but much less growth in amount of work completed by workers. Our results indicate that online freelancing represents a non-trivial segment of labour today, but one that is spread thinly across countries and sectors. |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2103.12648&r=all |
| By: | Pierre Courtioux (Paris School of Business (PSB) et Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne (CES)); François Métivier (Université de Paris - Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris); Antoine Rebérioux (Université de Paris, LADYSS) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the private return on R&D tax credit, defined as the ratio of total tax reliefs obtained by a firm through R&D tax credit to real R&D spending. Based on a dataset merging different sources for French companies, we first show that the distribution of this private return is dispersed. We then use clustering analyses to identify six mutually exclusive types of firms' R&D strategies. We finally show in a regression setting that these strategies explain part of the variance in the private return on R&D tax credit. This study contributes to a better understanding of the heterogeneity of firms' R&D strategies. It also seeks to open new directions in debates surrounding the proper design and reforms of R&D tax credit schemes |
| Keywords: | R&D; tax credit; firm strategies; firm heterogeneity |
| JEL: | C38 H25 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:21006&r=all |