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on Innovation |
| By: | Aghion, P.; Blundell, R.; Griffith, R.; Howitt, P.; Prantl, S. |
| Abstract: | How does firm entry affect innovation incentives in incumbent firms? Microdata suggest that there is heterogeneity across industries. Specifically, incumbent productivity growth and patenting is positively correlated with lagged greenfield foreign firm entry in technologically advanced industries, but not in laggard industries. In this paper we provide evidence that these correlations arise from a causal effect predicted by Schumpeterian growth theory—the threat of technologically advanced entry spurs innovation incentives in sectors close to the technology frontier, where successful innovation allows incumbents to survive the threat, but discourages innovation in laggard sectors, where the threat reduces incumbents' expected rents from innovating. We find that the empirical patterns hold using rich micro panel data for the United Kingdom. We control for the endogeneity of entry by exploiting major European and U.K. policy reforms, and allow for endogeneity of additional factors. We complement the analysis for foreign entry with evidence for domestic entry and entry through imports. |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/15901/&r=ino |
| By: | Macartney, G.J. |
| Abstract: | This thesis investigates the effect that market institutions have on economic outcomes such as employment and innovation. The market institutions under study are those that determine the conditions in product, labour and capital markets. Of particular interest is how the effect of institutional changes in one market depends on the conditions in another, or depends on the nature of innovation by the firm. The first chapter describes the matching of patents at the European Patent Office to firm accounts data for all registered firms across fifteen European countries. This constitutes a valuable new dataset for research in innovation that is used for much of the empirical work in this thesis. The second chapter investigates the impact of product market competition on unemployment, and how this depends on labour market institutions. It uses differential changes in regulations across OECD countries to find that increased competition reduces unemployment, more so in countries with strong unions. The third chapter investigates how the effect of product market competition on innovation depends on financial institutions. Using exogenous variation in competition in manufacturing industries this chapter finds that the positive effect of competition on innovation is larger in countries with good financial institutions. The fourth chapter investigates the effect of employment protection legislation on innovation. The theoretical effect of employment protection legislation on innovation is ambiguous, and empirical evidence is thus far inconclusive. This chapter finds that within multinational enterprises overall innovation occurs more in subsidiaries located in countries with high employment protection, however radical innovation occurs more in subsidiaries located in countries with low employment protection. |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/18564/&r=ino |
| By: | Hunt, Jennifer (McGill University) |
| Abstract: | Using the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates, I examine how immigrants perform relative to natives in activities likely to increase U.S. productivity, according to the type of visa on which they first entered the United States. Immigrants who first entered on a student/trainee visa or a temporary work visa have a large advantage over natives in wages, patenting, commercializing or licensing patents, and publishing. In general, this advantage is explained by immigrants’ higher education and field of study, but this is not the case for publishing, and immigrants are more likely to start companies than natives with similar education. Immigrants without U.S. education and who arrived at older ages suffer a wage handicap, which offsets savings to the United States from their having completed more education abroad. Immigrants who entered with legal permanent residence do not outperform natives for any of the outcomes considered. |
| Keywords: | immigration, innovation, entrepreneurship, visa type, wages |
| JEL: | J61 J24 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4745&r=ino |
| By: | Ottoz, Elisabetta; Cugno, Franco |
| Abstract: | We present a model where an incumbent firm has a proprietary product whose technology consists of at least two components, one of which is patented while the other is kept secret. At the patent expiration date, an entrant firm will enter the market on the same technological footing as the incumbent if it is successful in duplicating, at certain costs, the secret component of the incumbent’s technology. Otherwise, it will enter the market with a production cost disadvantage. We show that under some conditions a broad scope of trade secret law is socially beneficial despite the innovator is over-rewarded. |
| Keywords: | knowledge spillovers; duplication costs; covenants not to compete; inevitable disclosure |
| JEL: | O34 O31 |
| Date: | 2010–02–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:20672&r=ino |
| By: | Christian Daude |
| Abstract: | GDP per capita in Latin America has been falling behind high-income countries and other benchmarks for decades and the region’s mediocre growth performance is one of the main reasons why poverty reduction, and living standards more generally, in the region is well below that observed in peer countries. In this paper, we explore some of the potential roots of this poor performance by using development accounting techniques. The results point towards total factor productivity as the main culprit for the region’s lack of convergence. In order to investigate what causes the lack of productivity catch-up, we analyse the determinants of technology diffusion, in particular of internet and mobile phone technologies. The empirical results show that institutions, absorption capacity (human capital), and financial constraints are the main explanatory variables of the diffusion gaps in these technologies between the OECD and Latin America. We also explore the performance of the region in terms of health outcomes, reflected in the evolution of life expectancy, and the specific role played by technological innovation and adoption. Finally, a calibration exercise of an endogenous growth model allows us to assess the extent to which the region’s per capita income gap is due to problems in factor accumulation or distortions that reduce the incentives to innovate; the results point to very different situations across countries in the region. While for some countries we find evidence of ‚innovation shortfalls?, other countries’ problems concentrate around low factor accumulation.<BR>En Amérique latine, le PIB par habitant n’a eu de cesse depuis plusieurs décennies de reculer par rapport à celui des pays à hauts revenus et d’autres pays de références. Les mauvaises performances de la région en terme de croissance sont l’une des principales raisons pour lesquelles la réduction de la pauvreté, et de façon générale le niveau de vie, sont bien plus faibles que ceux observés dans les pays. Dans cet article, nous explorons certaines des raisons potentielles de cette mauvaise performance à l’aide de techniques comptables de développement. Les résultats tendent à montrer que la principale cause de l’absence de convergence de la région est la productivité totale des facteurs. Afin de rechercher pourquoi ces pays n’ont pas comblé leur retard de productivité, nous analysons les déterminants des technologies de diffusion, et en particulier internet et les technologies de téléphonie mobile. Les résultats empiriques montrent que les institutions, la capacité d’absorption (capital humain) et les contraintes financières sont les principales variables explicatives de l’écart qui existe entre les pays de l’OCDE et ceux de l’Amérique latine concernant la diffusion de ces technologies. Nous explorons également la performance de la région en matière de santé, mesurée par l’évolution de l’espérance de vie, et le rôle spécifique joué par l’innovation et l’adoption technologique. Finalement, un exercice de calibrage d’un modèle de croissance endogène nous permet d’évaluer jusqu’à quel point la différence de revenu par tête au sein de la région est due à des problèmes d’allocation des facteurs ou à des distorsions qui diminuent les incitations à innover. Les résultats varient fortement d’un pays à l’autre au sein de la région. Si pour certains pays nous mettons en évidence un « manque d’innovation », pour d’autres, la faible accumulation de facteurs demeure le principal problème. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, innovation, Latin America, total factor productivity, croissance économique, innovation, Amérique latine, productivité totale des facteurs |
| JEL: | O10 O30 O47 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:devaaa:288-en&r=ino |
| By: | Gabor Korosi (Institute of Economics Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Skill biased technical change arrived to Hungary with the transition to market economy. As Hungary integrated into the international economy, technical change progressed much faster in some sectors than in mature market economies. That lead to increasing skill premia, intensive rent sharing, and additional benefits for workers at innovative firms. This paper analyses wage setting at Hungarian firms after the micro-economic restructuring and stabilisation period, in the years 1998-2006, with a special regard to wage determination at innovative firms. Wage setting is characterised by intensive rent-sharing. Premium at innovative firms varies with the way of measuring it, and also changes with the sector and over time. |
| Keywords: | innovation, rent sharing, corporate wage setting |
| JEL: | J31 L10 O30 C23 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:bworkp:0908&r=ino |
| By: | E. Giuliani; A. Morrison; C. Pietrobelli; R. Rabellotti |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:prinwp:009&r=ino |