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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Ernest Miguelez; Andrea Morrison; |
| Abstract: | How do regions enter new and distant technological fields? Who is triggering this process? This work addresses these compelling research questions by investigating the role of migrant inventors in the process of technological diversification. Immigrant inventors can indeed act as carriers of knowledge across borders and influence the direction of technological change. We test these latter propositions by using an original dataset of immigrant inventors in the context of European regions during the period 2003-2011. Our findings show that: immigrant inventors generate positive local knowledge spillovers; they help their host regions to develop new technological specialisations; they trigger a process of unrelated diversification. Their contribution comes via two main mechanisms: immigrant inventors use their own personal knowledge (knowledge creation); they import knowledge from their home country to the host region (knowledge transfer). Their impact is maximised when their knowledge is not recombined with the local one (in mixed teams of inventors), but it is reused (in teams made by only migrant inventors). Our work contributes to the existing literature of regional diversification by providing fresh evidence of unrelated diversification for European regions and by identifying important agents of structural change. It also contributes to the literature of migration and innovation by adding fresh evidence on European regions and by unveiling some of the mechanisms of immigrants’ knowledge transmission. |
| Keywords: | patents, migration, technological diversification, relatedness, Europe |
| JEL: | O30 F20 F60 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2125&r= |
| By: | Pilar Beneito (University of Valencia and ERI-CES); María E. Rochina Barrachina (University of Valencia and ERI-CES); Amparo Sanchis (University of Valencia and ERI-CES) |
| Abstract: | Innovative firms use patents to signal the quality of their R&D teams in evaluation processes affected by asymmetric information. Examples of these processes occur when applying for finance from external sources or when searching for collaboration partners for innovation projects. In this paper we provide evidence that, in these cases, firms' external agents undervalue patents of female R&D teams as compared to patents of male R&D teams. We investigate this issue using data of Spanish innovating firms from PITEC, spanning 2005-2014, a panel database that follows the structure of the European Community Innovation Surveys (CIS). We interpret our results as consistent with an evaluation bias against female researchers, making them to be subject to a greater scrutiny as compared to their male counterparts, and thereby suggesting the existence of gender discrimination in R&D. |
| Keywords: | female R&D teams, patents, asymmetric information, quality signals |
| JEL: | O30 O34 C20 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eec:wpaper:2110&r= |
| By: | OKAMURO, Hiroyuki; SAKUMA, Yohei |
| Abstract: | Tax incentives have been implemented in several countries, including Japan, to promote research and development (R&D). Several previous studies evaluate the effects of R&D tax incentives on R&D expenditures, but few address the changes in its conditions. This study fills this gap by focusing on the tax incentive reform in Japan in 2009 and using a comprehensive panel data set of Japanese corporations (TDB COSMOS1). Using DID and fixed-effect panel analyses, we found a positive and significant effect of enhancing the deduction ratio ceiling but not extending the carryover period on R&D expenditures. |
| Keywords: | R&D, tax incentive reform, policy evaluation, Japan |
| JEL: | H25 L25 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:tdbcdp:e-2021-04&r= |
| By: | Goel, Rajeev K.; Nelson, Michael A. |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of research and development (R&D) and innovation on employment growth, focusing on small and medium-sized firms. Employment effects of R&D and innovation are unclear a priori as process innovation may be labor-saving or labor might have complementarities with other inputs. Employing firm-level data from 125 nations, results show that both R&D and innovation increased employment growth, suggesting that innovation was either capital-saving or labor had strong complementarities with other inputs. Upon splitting the sample into growing and contracting firms showed that contracting firms benefit from innovation but not from R&D. In other findings, sole proprietorships, larger firms, firms with relatively more experienced managers, firms with females as top managers, and firms facing the threat of informal competition had lower employment growth, while foreign-owned and government-owned enterprises have positive influences on employment growth. Finally, employment growth in shrinking firms was boosted in nations with greater economic freedom, but this growth is undermined by informal sector competition. |
| Keywords: | R&D,innovation,employment growth,managerial experience,foreign ownership,government ownership,economic freedom,emerging markets |
| JEL: | L2 O3 O5 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2196&r= |
| By: | Daan Freeman (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Leon Bettendorf (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Harro van Heuvelen (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Gerdien Meijerink (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the declining firm dynamism in the Netherlands, which may explain part of the slowdown in productivity growth. We use a rich microdata set including nearly all corporations in the Netherlands during 2006-2016, which enables us to evaluate the TFP growth contributions of exiting firms, start-ups and new firms resulting from mergers & acquisitions in different industries. We use a Melitz and Polanec (2015) decomposition to assess TFP growth contributions. We find that in service industries, start-ups, new firms created by M&As and exiting firms all contribute to overall TFP growth, in line with the creative destruction hypothesis. In manufacturing industries, TFP growth is driven mostly by incumbent firms. Here, entry and exit dynamics contribute relatively little or even negatively to TFP growth. In addition, young firms in the manufacturing industries tend to have higher TFP growth than older firms, while in service industries this is not the case. Finally, in general, relatively low productivity entrants are more likely to exit in the first five years after entry, which is in line with an `up-or-out' dynamic. |
| JEL: | F16 J31 R11 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:427&r= |
| By: | Dato, Prudence (University of Basel); Krysiak, Frank C. |
| Abstract: | Green innovation is a key element in fighting climate change. But there are several challenges that need to be addressed in managing a green technology transition, both in terms of interacting market failures (environmental externality, public good nature of innovation, strategic behaviour of incumbents protecting an emission-intensive technology) and as the structure of the technology market (whether the new technology is offered by a monopolistic incumbent or whether there is some competition induced by market entrants) will evolve throughout the transition. In this paper, we investigate the question what constitutes the optimal policy at different stages of the technology transition and for different market structures. We first analyse a policy mix that can implement a first-best outcome. We show that this mix will differ between different market settings and for different stages of the technology transition. Second, we investigate the choice between a push policy (subsidy for the new technology) and a pull strategy (tax on the old technology) and show that throughout the transition, the policy should be switched, often even more than once. Overall, our results indicate that managing a green technology transition requires a sequence of different policies attuned to the state of the transition and that this sequence differs substantially for different cases, for example, different levels of environmental damage or different cost advantages of the incumbent over entrants. |
| Keywords: | Policy, Tax, Subsidy, Green Technology, Imperfect Competition, Technology Transition, Innovation, Endogenous Market Structure, Emissions, Climate Change, Environmental Economics. |
| JEL: | C60 L10 O31 Q54 Q55 |
| Date: | 2021–08–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2021/08&r= |
| By: | Krammer, Sorin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of human resource (HR) policies on firm innovation. Specifically, we argue that firms who implement policies to stimulate job autonomy and performance-based pay will be more likely to innovate, as proxied by investments in R&D. In addition, we contend that the institutional (i.e., labour regulations) and competitive (i.e., pressure from imports) contexts in which a firm operates will affect the relationship between HR policies and innovation, albeit in different ways. We test these hypotheses using a dataset of more than 900 firms across a heterogenous set of 12 countries, majority of which are emerging markets. We find strong empirical backing for the role of both job autonomy and performance-based pay policies in stimulating firm innovation, and partial support for the moderating effects of institutional and competitive contexts of this relationship. |
| Keywords: | Human Resource Management; Job autonomy; Performance-based pay; Firm innovation; Labour regulations; Import competition |
| JEL: | D4 J33 J8 O17 O3 O32 |
| Date: | 2021–07–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:109486&r= |
| By: | Timo Boppart; Huiyu Li |
| Abstract: | Growth accounting suggests that the bulk of the post-2004 slowdown in output growth in the U.S. is attributed to a residual called TFP. In this paper we provide a tractable accounting framework with firm heterogeneity to link this residual to innovations, markup dispersion, and potential measurement errors. Theories of creative destruction offer rich testable predictions of how the quality upgrading of products, the process efficiency of different firms, and markup dispersion in the market interact and therefore constitute a key approach to shed light on the slowdown in TFP growth. Surveying the literature on measurement, we conclude that measurement errors is unlikely to explain the recent deceleration in TFP growth. |
| Keywords: | growth accounting; development accounting; growth slowdown; measurement; innovation |
| JEL: | O31 O47 O51 |
| Date: | 2021–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:93024&r= |
| By: | Hasbi, Maude; Bohlin, Erik |
| Abstract: | Based on a unique and exhaustive database, including micro-level cross-sectional data on 23 million observations over nine years, from 2009 to 2017, we assess whether broadband quality has an impact on income and unemployment reduction. Overall, the results do not show any significant effect of download speed on either income or the unemployment rate. However, after distinguishing between educational attainment and the city size, we obtained heterogeneous results. While we highlight a substitution effect between low-skilled workers and broadband in smaller cities, we also show that broadband quality has a positive impact on unemployment reduction for low-skilled workers in bigger cities. However, the model predicts a negative effect of broadband quality on both the median income and the unemployment rate in areas having a higher proportion of college graduates. This result tends to support the analyses showing that, with the progress made in machine learning, artificial intelligence and the increasing availability of big data, job computerization is expanding to the sphere of high-income cognitive jobs. |
| Keywords: | Broadband Quality,Fibre,Income,Unemployment,Artificial Intelligence |
| JEL: | L13 L50 L96 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb21:238026&r= |
| By: | Pierre Azoulay (MIT Sloan School of Management, and NBER); Benjamin Jones (Northwestern University, and NBER); J. Daniel Kim (University of Pennsylvania); Javier Miranda (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH)) |
| Abstract: | Immigrants can expand labor supply and compete for jobs with native-born workers. But immigrants may also start new firms, expanding labor demand. This paper uses U.S. administrative data and other data sources to study the role of immigrants in entrepreneurship. We ask how often immigrants start companies, how many jobs these firms create, and how firms founded by native-born individuals compare. A simple model provides a measurement framework for addressing the dual roles of immigrants as founders and workers. The findings suggest that immigrants act more as "job creators" than "job takers" and play outsized roles in U.S. high-growth entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, immigration, innovation, administrative data, Survey of Business Owners, Fortune 500, job creation, earnings, growth |
| JEL: | J15 L26 M13 O3 |
| Date: | 2021–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2021-014&r= |
| By: | Axenbeck, Janna; Niebel, Thomas |
| Abstract: | Although information and communication technologies (ICT) consume energy themselves, they are considered to have the potential to improve overall energy efficiency within economic sectors. While previous empirical evidence is based on aggregated data, this is the first large-scale empirical study on the relationship between ICT and energy efficiency at the firm level. For this purpose, we employ administrative panel data on 28,734 manufacturing firms from German Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Federal States collected between 2009 and 2017. Using software capital intensity as an indicator for the firm-level degree of digitalization, we analyze whether an increase thereof relates to energy efficiency improvements. Results confirm the statistically significant negative link between software capital and energy use. However, the relationship is highly inelastic and does not suggest economic relevance. Therefore, we conclude that effects of ICT on energy use are not large enough to substantially improve energy efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Digitalization,ICT,Firm Level,Energy Efficiency |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb21:238007&r= |
| By: | MÜLLER Julian M.; POTTERS Lesley (European Commission - JRC); RENTOCCHINI Francesco (European Commission - JRC); TUEBKE Alexander (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | The successful implementation of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) within the European Union (EU) should build upon existing global innovation networks (GINs) and global value chains (GVCs) and the ecosystem of EU firms, especially in the manufacturing industry where I4.0 could play an important role.For the EU, which has a large share of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are key to competitiveness in its main sectors, it is vital to integrate SMEs into I4.0 by ensuring they benefit from their efforts in implementing it, in order to capture, create and offer value. It is important to address training, requalification and workers’ concerns about I4.0 in order to support its implementation while maintaining the EU social model.Harnessing the EU’s strength in industrial application, while bearing in mind its lag in traditional ICT industries, could make I4.0 a viable policy option ensuring future leadership of the European economy, if certain factors discussed in this policy brief are included in future industrial policies. |
| Keywords: | Global value chains, innovation |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc124742&r= |