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on Innovation |
| By: | Priit Vahter; Jaan Masso |
| Abstract: | The emerging literature on the characteristics of innovation processes in the service sector has paid relatively little attention to the links between innovation and productivity. In this paper we investigate how the innovation-productivity relationship differs across various subbranches of the service sector. For the analysis we use the CDM structural model consisting of equations for innovation expenditures, innovation output, productivity and exports. We use data from the community innovation surveys for Estonia. We show that innovation is associated with increased productivity in the service sector. The results indicate surprisingly that the effect of innovation on productivity is stronger in the less knowledge-intensive service sectors, despite the lower frequency of innovative activities and the results of earlier literature. Non-technological innovation only plays a positive role in some specifications, despite its expected importance especially among the service firms. An additional positive channel of the effects of innovation on productivity may function through increased exports. |
| Keywords: | innovation, services, productivity |
| JEL: | O31 O33 L80 |
| Date: | 2011–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2010-1012&r=ino |
| By: | Alberto Galasso; Mark Schankerman; Carlos J. Serrano |
| Abstract: | We study how the market for innovation affects enforcement of patent rights. Conventional wisdom associates the gains from trade with comparative advantage in manufacturing or marketing. We show that these gains imply that patent transactions should increase litigation risk. We identify a new source of gains from trade, comparative advantage in patent enforcement, and show that transactions driven by this motive should reduce litigation. Using data on trade and litigation of individually-owned patents in the U.S., we exploit variation in capital gains tax rates as an instrument to identify the causal effect of trade on litigation. We find that taxes strongly affect patent transactions, and that reallocation of patent rights reduces litigation risk, on average. The impact of trade on litigation is heterogeneous, however. Patents with larger potential gains from trade are more likely to change ownership, suggesting that the market for innovation is efficient. We also show that the impact of trade on litigation depends on characteristics of the transactions. |
| Keywords: | patents, litigation, market for innovation, capital gains taxation |
| JEL: | K41 H24 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1072&r=ino |
| By: | Alberto Galasso; Mark Schankerman; Carlos J. Serrano |
| Abstract: | We study how the market for innovation affects enforcement of patent rights. Conventional wisdom associates the gains from trade with comparative advantage in manufacturing or marketing. We show that these gains imply that patent transactions should increase litigation risk. We identify a new source of gains from trade, comparative advantage in patent enforcement, and show that transactions driven by this motive should reduce litigation. Using data on trade and litigation of individually-owned patents in the U.S., we exploit variation in capital gains tax rates as an instrument to identify the causal effect of trade on litigation. We find that taxes strongly effect patent transactions, and that reallocation of patent rights reduces litigation risk, on average. The impact of trade on litigation is heterogeneous, however. Patents with larger potential gains from trade are more likely to change ownership, suggesting that the market for innovation is efficient. We also show that the impact of trade on litigation depends on characteristics of the transactions. |
| JEL: | H24 K41 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17367&r=ino |
| By: | Gebreeyesus, Mulu (UNU-MERIT); Mohnen, Pierre (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This study focuses on innovation in a cluster of informal shoemaking firms in Ethiopia - namely the Mercato footwear cluster. It examines how differently those firms are embedded in networks and how heterogeneous they are in absorptive capacity, and how this heterogeneity affects their innovation performance. Business interactions with buyers, suppliers and other producers are the major channels through which knowledge flows into the cluster. These business networks are mainly built on trust and long-term relationships and tend to be selective. The study reveals that despite homogeneity in social background the firms in the cluster behave and perform differently. Based on econometric analysis we document a positive and strong effect of local network position and absorptive capacity on innovation performance. |
| Keywords: | industrial clusters, networks, innovation performance, informal sector, Africa, Ethiopia |
| JEL: | O17 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2011043&r=ino |
| By: | Narula, Rajneesh (Henley Business School, University of Reading); Santangelo, Grazia D. (Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, University of Catania) |
| Abstract: | This paper takes a closer look at the role of location advantages in the spatial distribution of MNE R&D activity. In doing so, we have returned to first principles by revisiting our understanding of L and O advantages and their interaction. We revisit the meaning of L advantages, and offer a succinct differentiation of L advantages. We emphasise the importance of institutions, and flesh out the concept of collocation L advantages, which play an important role at the industry and firm levels of analysis. Just because a country possesses certain L advantages when viewed at a macro-level, does not imply that these are available to all industries or all firms in that location without differential cost. When these are linked to the distinction between location-bound and non location-bound O advantages, and we distinguish between MNEs and subsidiaries it allows for a clearer understanding of the MNE's spatially distributed activities. These are discussed here in the context of R&D, which - in addition to the usual uncertainties faced by firms - must deal with the uncertainties associated with innovation. Although prior literature has sometimes framed the centralisation/decentralisation, spatial separation/collocation debates as a paradox facing firms, when viewed within the context of the cognitive limits to resources, the complexities of institutions, and the slow pace of the evolving specialisation of locations, these are in actuality trade-offs firms must make. |
| Keywords: | FDI, foreign investment, direct investment, multinationals, transnational corporations, MNEs, eclectic paradigm, collocation, locational advantage, country specific advantages |
| JEL: | F23 L52 O14 O19 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2011045&r=ino |
| By: | Raphael Anton Auer; Philip Ulrich Sauré |
| Abstract: | We develop a general equilibrium model of vertical innovation in which multiple firms compete monopolistically in the quality space. The model features many firms, each of which holds the monopoly to produce a unique quality level of an otherwise homogenous good, and consumers who are heterogeneous in their valuation of the good's quality. If the marginal cost of production is convex with respect to quality, multiple rms coexist, and their equilibrium markups are determined by the degree of convexity and the density of quality-competition. To endogenize the latter, we nest this industry setup in a Schumpeterian model of endogenous growth. Each firm enters the industry as the technology leader and successively transits through the product cycle as it is superseded by further innovations. The intrinsic reason that innovation happens in our economy is not one of displacing the incumbent; rather, innovation is a means to di-erentiate oneself from existing firms and target new consumers. Aggregate growth arises if, on the one hand, increasingly wealthy consumers are willing to pay for higher quality and, on the other hand, private firms' innovation generates income growth by enlarging the set of available technologies. Because the frequency of innovation determines the toughness of product market competition, in our framework, the relation between growth and competition is reversed compared to the standard Schumpeterian framework. Our setup does not feature business stealing in the sense that already marginal innovations grant non-negligible prots. Rather, innovators sell to a set of consumers that was served relatively poorly by pre-existing firms. Nevertheless, "creative destruction" prevails as new entrants make the set of available goods more di-erentiated, thereby exerting a pro-competitive e-ect on the entire industry. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2011-10&r=ino |
| By: | Bergman, Karin (CIRCLE, Lund University); Ejermo, Olof (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Sweden has seen a rise in business R&D intensities and dependence on exports to make its economy grow since the early 1990s. This paper examines the role of foreign sales for stimulating R&D as compared to a domestic sales effect. In line with the literature, we find in cross-sections from 1991 to 2001 that R&D rises proportionally to sales. But among manufacturing firms foreign sales is distinctly more strongly associated with an increase in R&D than domestic sales. For service firms domestic sales are as important as foreign. The results are consistent with the hypotheses that manufacturing firms more easily separate production from R&D, that they economize on transport costs and are subject to learning-by-export effects. In general, the results highlight the dependence and the role of openness for stimulating R&D in a small economy, especially among manufacturing firms. |
| Keywords: | R&D; size; exports; Sweden |
| JEL: | O32 |
| Date: | 2011–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2011_005&r=ino |