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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Sanjit Dhami (University of Leicester); Paolo Zeppini (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France) |
| Abstract: | We consider firms' choices between a clean technology that benefits, and a dirty technology, that harms, the environment. Green firms are more suited to the clean, and brown firms are more suited to the dirty technology. We use a model derived from complexity theory that takes account of true uncertainty and increasing returns to technology adoption. We examine theoretically, the properties of the long-run equilibrium, and provide simulated time paths of technology adoption, using plausible dynamics. The long-run outcome is an 'emergent property' of the system, and is unpredictable despite there being no external technological or preference shocks. We describe the role of taxes and subsidies in facilitating adoption of the clean technology; the conflict between optimal Pigouvian taxes and adoption of clean technologies; the optimal temporal profile of subsidies; and the desirability of an international fund to provide technology assistance to poorer countries. |
| Keywords: | Technology choice, climate change, complexity, lock-in e ects, increasing returns, green subsidies, public policy, Pigouvian taxes, stochastic dynamics |
| JEL: | B2 B21 B4 D9 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2024-20&r= |
| By: | Maria del Sorbo (European Innovation Council, Bruxelles, Belgium); Carina Faber (European Innovation Council, Bruxelles, Belgium); Marco Grazzi (Dipartimento di Politica Economica, DISCE, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy); Francesco Matteucci (European Innovation Council, Bruxelles, Belgium); Miriam Ruß (Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie gGmbH, Wuppertal, Germany) |
| Abstract: | A novel analysis of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator pilot is presented, marking the first extensive examination of its selection process and the impact of its funding on deep tech ventures, in comparison to its predecessor, the SME Instrument. Utilizing applicant data from both programs, the study assesses the EIC’s effectiveness in targeting firms that align with its objectives of driving breakthrough innovation. The research reveals that the EIC Accelerator pilot attracts younger and smaller firms, in comparison to its predecessor. A significantly higher proportion of applicants are high tech and medium high-tech, indicating a strategic shift towards supporting cutting-edge technologies. Despite this shift, the analysis of funding determinants demonstrates a consistent pattern across both programs, emphasizing the influence of firm size, age, and patent portfolio. Further, a regression discontinuity design analysis is used to estimate the impact of funding during the EIC accelerator pilot on firm-level outcomes, such as patenting, revenue, or employment growth. However, the very recent launch of the program shrinks both the observations and the ex-post window, and due to large standard errors the point estimates are not significant at conventional levels. |
| Keywords: | Innovation Policy, Industrial policy, deep-tech, start-up, regression discontinuity, patent, firm growth |
| JEL: | O3 O31 O32 O38 L25 L26 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie5:dipe0037&r= |
| By: | CALDAROLA Bernardo; MAZZILLI Dario; NAPOLITANO Lorenzo (European Commission - JRC); PATELLI Aurelio; SBARDELLA Angelica |
| Abstract: | Economic Complexity (EC) methods have gained increasing popularity across fields and disciplines. In particular, the EC toolbox has proved particularly promising in the study of complex and interrelated phenomena, such as the transition towards a greener economy. Using the EC approach, scholars have been investigating the relationship between EC and sustainability, proposing to identify the distinguishing characteristics of green products and to assess the readiness of productive and technological structures for the sustainability transition. This article proposes to review and summarize the data, methods, and empirical literature that are relevant to the study of the sustainability transition from an EC perspective. We review three distinct but connected blocks of literature on EC and environmental sustainability. First, we survey the evidence linking measures of EC to indicators related to environmental sustainability. Second, we review articles that strive to assess the green competitiveness of productive systems. Third, we examine evidence on green technological development and its connection to non-green knowledge bases. Finally, we summarize the findings for each block and identify avenues for further research in this recent and growing body of empirical literature. |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:202401&r= |
| By: | Aleksandra Parteka (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland); Piotr PÅ‚atkowski (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland); Sabina Szymczak (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland); Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz (Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the construction of a microlevel database on knowledge creation by higher education institutions (KC-HEI), accompanying the Global Knowledge Input-Output database (KIO, Davies et al., 2023). The database was created as part of Project Rethink GCS. KC-HEI links PATSTAT information on the patenting activity of 866 universities (HEIs) in 31 European countries over four decades (1980-2019), using citation records and patent quality indicators from OECD/STI Micro-data. KC-HEI makes possible analysis of the Institutions' innovation performance across 128 internationally comparable technological sectors and, separately, with respect to Artificial Intelligence (AI). We also develop a unique crosswalk between PATSTAT and ETER that combines KC-HEI with other institution-level datasets (such as ETER and RISIS) and allows us to build a parallel dataset covering 785 patenting and 2101 non-patenting universities in Europe between 2011 and 2019. We illustrate the potential of the KC-HEI database, providing key stylised facts on the role of universities in knowledge creation, while documenting extreme core-periphery patterns of university patenting in Europe and detecting several key university-level factors that reinforce this disparity. |
| Keywords: | Patents, Innovation, Knowledge, Higher Education Institutions, University |
| JEL: | O31 O33 I23 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gdk:wpaper:73&r= |
| By: | Elodie Carpentier; Jennifer Brant; Utsav Bahl; Aikaterini Kanellia |
| Abstract: | Innovation is a driver of competitive advantage and economic growth, with patent rights playing a critical supporting role. However, differential access to patent rights and relatively less participation in innovation can affect women and people from other historically underrepresented groups, thereby hindering progress and limiting the potential economic benefits generated by innovation. This paper reviews the global literature on these “diversity gaps†, identifies their key drivers, and documents international policies and initiatives that show promise in addressing them. Building upon Shapanka and Fechner (2018), it expands the geographic scope and reinforces the scientific basis of their analysis. The paper also provides recommendations for a wide range of stakeholders and offers insights for fostering more inclusive and equitable innovation ecosystems. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Diversity Gaps, Intellectual Property |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:86&r= |
| By: | Anand Chopra; Ronit Mukherji |
| Abstract: | This paper illustrates the role of low-skilled immigrants' location choice as a channel through which local labour markets adjust to automation. We employ a shift-share instrumental variable approach to demonstrate that low-skilled immigrants are more mobile than low-skilled native born in response to robot exposure. Low-skilled immigrants are less likely to enter and more likely to exit from highly robot-exposed regions. Immigrants' location decisions attenuate wage losses due to robot exposure for low-skilled natives. Low-skilled native workers experience a 0.07 percentage point smaller decline in wages comparing commuting zones at the 50th and 25th percentiles of low-skilled immigrant shares. |
| Keywords: | Automation, Geographic labour mobility, Immigrants, Technology |
| JEL: | J15 J23 J31 J61 O33 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–06–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liv:livedp:202409&r= |
| By: | Dugoua, Eugenie; Dumas, Marion |
| Abstract: | Significant progress reconciling economic activities with a stable climate requires radical and rapid technological change in multiple sectors. Here, we study the case of the automotive industry’s transition to electric vehicles, which involved choosing between two different technologies: fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) or battery electric vehicles (BEVs). We know very little about the role that such technological uncertainty plays in shaping the strategies of firms, the efficacy of technological and climate policies, and the speed of technological transitions. Here, we explain that the choice between these two technologies posed a global and multisectoral coordination game, due to technological complementarities and the global organization of the industry’s markets and supply chains. We use data on patents, supply-chain relationships, and national policies to document historical trends and industry dynamics for these two technologies. While the industry initially focused on FCEVs, around 2008, the technological paradigm shifted to BEVs. National-level policies had a limited ability to coordinate global players around a type of clean car technology. Instead, exogenous innovation spillovers from outside the automotive sector played a critical role in solving this coordination game in favor of BEVs. Our results suggest that global and cross-sectoral technology policies may be needed to accelerate low-carbon technological change in other sectors, such as shipping or aviation. This enriches the existing theoretical paradigm, which ignores the scale of interdependencies between technologies and firms. |
| Keywords: | energy innovation; electric cars; fuel cells; coordination; low-carbon transitions |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–06–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124029&r= |
| By: | Giovanni Dosi; Federico Riccio; Maria Enrica Virgillito |
| Abstract: | This work assesses the double harm of Global Value Chain (GVC) integration. Firstly, we take a within-country structural change perspective and investigate how the internal structure of country production, and thus the ensuing emission profile, evolves across development phases. Assessing the structural change-emissions nexus is necessary to understand how to reconcile growth and sustainable development. Secondly, we look at the cross-country dimension, embracing how the changing geography of production affects the environment. We find evidence that the relocation of production toward developing countries via GVCs has negatively impacted worldwide emissions and document that GVCs are progressively becoming a carrier of industrial and ecological downgrading for developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Structural Change, CO2 Emissions, Global Value Chains |
| Date: | 2024–07–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2024/17&r= |
| By: | Jaedo Choi; Andrei A. Levchenko; Dimitrije Ruzic; Younghun Shim |
| Abstract: | We quantify the contribution of the largest firms to South Korea's economic performance over the period 1972-2011. Using firm-level historical data, we document a novel fact: firm concentration rose substantially during the growth miracle period. To understand whether rising concentration contributed positively or negatively to South Korean real income, we build a quantitative heterogeneous firm small open economy model. Our framework accommodates a variety of potential causes and consequences of changing firm concentration: productivity, distortions, selection into exporting, scale economies, and oligopolistic and oligopsonistic market power in domestic goods and labor markets. The model is implemented directly on the firm-level data and inverted to recover the drivers of concentration. We find that most of the differential performance of the top firms is attributable to higher productivity growth rather than differential distortions. Exceptional performance of the top 3 firms within each sector relative to the average firms contributed 15% to the 2011 real GDP and 4% to the net present value of welfare over the period 1972-2011. Thus, the largest Korean firms were superstars rather than supervillains. |
| JEL: | F12 F16 L11 N15 O40 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32648&r= |
| By: | Pinelopi K. Goldberg; Réka Juhász; Nathan J. Lane; Giulia Lo Forte; Jeff Thurk |
| Abstract: | The resurgence of subsidies and industrial policies has raised concerns about their potential inefficiency and alignment with multilateral principles. Critics warn that such policies may divert resources to less efficient firms and provoke retaliatory measures from other countries, leading to a wasteful "subsidy race." However, subsidies for sectors with inherent cross-border externalities can have positive global effects. This paper examines these issues within the semiconductor industry: a key driver of economic growth and innovation with potentially significant learning-by-doing and strategic importance due to its dual-use applications. Our study aims to: (1) document and quantify recent industrial policies in the global semiconductor sector, (2) explore the rationale behind these policies, and (3) evaluate their economic impacts, particularly their cross-border effects, and compatibility with multilateral principles. We employ historical analysis, natural language processing, and a model-based approach to measure government support and its impacts. Our findings indicate that government support has been vital for the industry's growth, with subsidies being the primary form of support. They also highlight the importance of cross-border technology transfers through FDI, business and research collaborations, and technology licensing. China, despite significant subsidies, does not stand out as an outlier compared to other countries, given its market size. Preliminary model estimates indicate that while learning-by-doing exists, it is smaller than commonly believed, with significant international spillovers. These spillovers likely reflect cross-country technology transfers and the role of fabless clients in disseminating knowledge globally through their interactions with foundries. Such cross-border spillovers are not merely accidental but result from deliberate actions by market participants that cannot be taken for granted. Firms may choose to share knowledge across borders or restrict access to frontier technology, thereby excluding certain countries. Future research will use model estimates to simulate the quantitative implications of subsidies and to explore the dynamics of a ``subsidy race'' in the semiconductor industry. |
| JEL: | F13 F61 L63 N60 O38 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32651&r= |