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on Innovation |
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Issue of 2010‒06‒04
twelve papers chosen by Steffen Lippert Massey University Department of Commerce |
| By: | Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello (JRC-IPTS) |
| Abstract: | Policy-makers have become increasingly aware that corporate R&D and innovation are the main drivers of an economy's competitiveness and growth. The widespread adoption of R&D targets has led researchers and analysts to pursue a deeper understanding of corporate R&D investment trends, drivers and impacts. This paper focuses on the main differences between the EU and the US in corporate R&D performance, especially in the following three main aspects: (i) dynamics of the economic structures and the cause of the R&D intensity gap; (ii) R&D performance and company demographics and (iii) financial availability and corporate R&D investment. Based on the literature review, the paper concludes that (a) there have been more dynamic changes in the structure of the US economy than in the EU in the last two decades which in turn have favoured the growth in the US of higher R&D-intensity sectors to a larger extent than in the EU; (b) younger and smaller-sized US companies are more present - and show a higher capacity to grow - in high-R&D intensity sectors than similar companies in the EU; (c) financial markets, especially in the last decade, have hampered EU firms' R&D investment more than that of US firms. The paper concludes that policy measures to stimulate corporate R&D and innovation activities should be expressly conceived according to the typology of companies, sectors and countries. |
| Keywords: | Corporate R&D, EU-US comparison, industrial dynamics, technological change, innovation process, government policy |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201001&r=ino |
| By: | Francesco Bogliacino (JRC-IPTS); Marco Vivarelli (Università Cattolica, Milano; CSGR-Warwick University; IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | In this study we use a unique database covering 25 manufacturing and service sectors for 15 European countries over the period 1996-2005, for a total of 2,295 observations, and apply GMM-SYS panel estimations of a demand-for-labour equation augmented with technology. We find that R&D expenditures -fostering product innovation- have a job-creating effect, in accordance with the previous theoretical and empirical literature discussed in the paper. Interestingly enough, the labour-friendly nature of R&D emerges in both the flow and the stock specifications. These findings provide further justification for the European Lisbon-Barcelona targets. |
| Keywords: | Technological change, corporate R&D, employment, product innovation, GMM-SYS |
| JEL: | O33 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201004&r=ino |
| By: | Michele Cincera (JRC-IPTS); Julien Ravet (Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the existence and importance of financing constraints for R&D investments in large EU and US manufacturing companies over the 2000 – 2007 period. The main results obtained by estimating error-correction equations suggest that the sensitivity of R&D investments to cash flow variations are important for European firms while US ones do not appear to be financially constrained. In terms of policy implications, these results suggest improving the conditions for access to external capital to finance R&D activities in the EU. |
| Keywords: | Financial constraints, R&D investments, error-correction investment equations, system GMM panel data econometric models |
| JEL: | C23 E22 O31 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201003&r=ino |
| By: | Christ, Julian P. |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes with empirical findings to European co-inventorship location and geographical coincidence of co-patenting networks. Based on EPO co-patenting information for the reference period 2000-2004, we analyze the spatial configuration of 44 technology-specific co-inventorship networks. European co-inventorship (co-patenting) activity is spatially linked to 1259 European NUTS3 units (EU25+CH+NO) and their NUTS1 regions by inventor location. We extract 7.135.117 EPO co-patenting linkages from our own relational database that makes use of the OECD RegPAT (2009) Files. The matching between International Patent Classification (IPC) subclasses and 44 technology fields is based on the ISI-SPRU-OST-concordance. We confirm the hypothesis that the 44 co-inventorship networks differ in their overall size (nodes, linkages, self-loops) and that they are dominated by similar groupings of regions. The paper offers statistical evidence for the presence of highly localized European co-inventorship networks for all 44 technology fields, as the majority of linkages between NUTS3 units (counties and districts) are within the same NUTS1 regions. Accordingly, our findings helps to understand general presence of positive spatial autocorrelation in regional patent data. Our analysis explicitly accounts for different network centrality measures (betweenness, degree, eigenvector). Spearman rank correlation coefficients for all 44 technology fields confirm that most co-patenting networks co-locate in those regions that are central in several technology-specific co-patenting networks. These findings support the hypothesis that leading European regions are indeed multi-field network nodes and that most research collaboration is taking place in dense co-patenting networks. -- |
| Keywords: | co-patenting,co-inventorship,networks,linkages,co-location,RegPAT |
| JEL: | C8 O31 O33 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohpro:y2010i31p1-40&r=ino |
| By: | Michele Cincera (JRC-IPTS); Claudio Cozza (JRC-IPTS); Alexander Tübke (JRC-IPTS) |
| Abstract: | Based on an original and recent sample representative of the largest R&D corporations in the EU, this paper aims at investigating in a quantitative way the main factors explaining: (i) the decision of firms to increase their R&D investment effort in the near future; (ii) the main drivers explaining the favourite international location choice for R&D; and (iii) the impact of direct and indirect policies to support R&D activities in the EU. The main findings suggest that competitive pressures from the US are the main determinants for increasing R&D investments. Public support to R&D and proximity to other activities of the company influence the decision to locate R&D in the home country. Considerations on the cost of employing researchers become one factor among others only for firms preferring a location outside their home country, in particular in the rest of the world (countries other than the EU or the US). |
| Keywords: | Drivers of R&D internationalisation, R&D policies, EU large R&D corporations |
| JEL: | F23 O32 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201002&r=ino |
| By: | Werner Bönte (Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, Bergische Universität Wuppertal); Sebastian Nielen (Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, Bergische Universität Wuppertal) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between trade credit and innovation. While trade credit is well researched in the finance literature, its link to innovation has been neglected in prior research. We argue that innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to use trade credit than non-innovative SMEs because of credit constraints and that business partners may have incentives to offer trade credit especially to innovative SMEs. The relationship between innovation and trade credit is empirically examined by using a sample of SMEs from 14 European countries. The results of an econometric analysis confirm a positive relationship between innovation and trade credit. In particular, SMEs with product innovations have a higher probability of using trade credit than other SMEs. Moreover, the results suggest that the effect of product innovation is only statistically significant if SMEs report that access to financing or cost of financing are obstacles for the operation and growth of their businesses. Hence, the results point to the relevance of trade credit as a source of short-term financing for innovative SMEs which are credit constrained. |
| Keywords: | trade credit, innovation, credit constraints |
| JEL: | G32 O31 L20 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwu:schdps:sdp10005&r=ino |
| By: | Junichiro Ishida; Toshihiro Matsumura; Noriaki Matsushima |
| Abstract: | We investigate a Cournot model with strategic R&D investments wherein efficient low-cost firms compete against less efficient high-cost firms. We find that an increase in the number of high-cost firms can stimulate R&D by the low-cost firms, while it always reduces R&D by the high-cost firms. More importantly, this force can be strong enough to compensate for the loss that arises from more intense market competition: the low-cost firms' profits may indeed increase with the number of high-cost firms. An implication of this result is far-reaching, as it gives low-cost firms an incentive to help, rather than harm, high-cost competitors. We relate this implication to a practice known as open knowledge disclosure, especially Ford's strategy of disclosing its know-how publicly and extensively at the beginning of the 20th century. |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0777&r=ino |
| By: | ITO Banri; YASHIRO Naomitsu; XU Zhaoyuan; CHEN Xiaohong; WAKASUGI Ryuhei |
| Abstract: | Recently, Foreign Invested Enterprises (FIEs) in China have increased their investment in not only production activity but also R&D activity. This paper examines the impact of spillovers from their activities on two types of innovations by Chinese domestic firms: Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and invention patent application, using comprehensive industry and province-level data. We evaluate such spillovers according to FIEs' ownership structure, the origin of foreign funds, and the type of their activity: R&D, and production. We find an interesting asymmetry between spillovers to TFP and patent application; however, although we do not find significant intra-industry spillovers from FIEs, which is in line with previous studies, we find robust inter-industries spillover on TFP. We also find substantial intra-industry spillovers promoting invention patent application but no evidence of inter-industries spillovers. Furthermore, whereas spillovers from FIEs to Chinese firmsf TFP stem from their production activities, the source of spillovers to invention patent application is mostly through their R&D activity. Our findings indicate a need for multi-dimensional evaluation on the role of FDI in developing countries. |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:10026&r=ino |
| By: | Elisa Barbieri (Department of Economics, Institutions and Environment University of Ferrara) |
| Abstract: | Governments in western countries are seeing Universities as the key actor to promote a transition to a knowledge-based economy that can help the future competitiveness challenges posed by new entrants in the global market. In this context, specific industrial policies are designed to promote a transfer of technology, and a more general transfer of knowledge from universities to firms, in order to favour innovation, that is the economic exploitation and commercialisation of new products and processes generated by inventions within universities. Although the use of these policies is rapidly expanding, the same cannot be said of the evaluation efforts made to understand the effects of the reforms promoted in western economies. This paper offers a contribution to the existing literature and highlights some key open issues on which future research can build in order to improve the knowledge on the effectiveness of reforms we are witnessing, in particular in the U.S. and in Europe. |
| Keywords: | Evaluation of policies; university technology transfer; university patenting; university spin-off |
| JEL: | L3 O3 H5 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cme:wpaper:1001&r=ino |
| By: | McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen |
| Abstract: | Why did the North-Sea folk suddenly get so rich, get so much cargo? The answers seems not to be that supply was brought into equilibrium with demand---the curves were moving out at breakneck pace. Reallocation is not the key. Language is, with its inherent creativity. The Bourgeois Revaluation of the 17th and 18th centuries brought on the modern world. It was the Greatest Externality, and the substance of a real liberalism. Left and right have long detested it, expressing their detestation nowadays in environmentalism. They can stop the modern world, and in some places have. The old Soviet Union was admired even by many economists---an instance of a “cultural contradiction of capitalism,” in which ideas permitted by the successes of innovation rise up to kill the innovation. We should resist it. |
| Keywords: | innovation; bourgeois revaluation; liberalism; success of innovation |
| JEL: | B1 N00 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:22925&r=ino |
| By: | Valeria Costantini; Massimiliano Mazzanti; Anna Montini |
| Abstract: | The achievement of positive environmental performance at national level could strongly depend on differences in local capabilities of both institutions and the private business sector. Environmental regulation alone is a weak instrument if the institutional and business environment cannot transform regulation strengths into opportunities. In this paper, we use the new environmental accounting matrix for polluting emissions now available for the 20 Italian Regions that covers 24 sectors and combines a shift-share approach with spatial econometric modelling. We provide evidence of the role played by internal innovation, innovation spillovers and regional policies in shaping the geographical distribution of environmental performance achievements. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Performance, Technological Innovation, Regional Spillovers, Polluting Emissions, Italian Regions |
| JEL: | Q53 Q55 Q56 R15 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0118&r=ino |
| By: | Toshihiro Matsumura; Noriaki Matsushima |
| Abstract: | Innovators who have developed advanced technologies, along with launching new products by themselves, often license these technologies to their rivals. When a firm launches a new product, product positioning is also an important matter. We consider a standard linear city model with two firms in which the licenser and the licensee negotiate on licensing and engage in Nash bargaining after they determine their product positions. We investigate how the bargaining power of the licenser affects the product positions of the firms. We find that the licenser more likely chooses the central position when its bargaining power is weak whereas the product position of the licenser accelerates price competition between the firms. We also discuss the welfare implication. We find that the inverse U shape relationship between the bargaining power of the licenser and total social surplus, i.e., neither too strong nor too weak bargaining power of the licensor is optimal. |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0775&r=ino |