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on Innovation |
| By: | Christian Le Bas; Julien Pénin |
| Abstract: | The standard view of patents emphasizes their dynamic efficiency. It considers that, by providing firms with incentives to invest in R&D and to disclose their knowledge, patents encourage innovation and increase social welfare in the long run. Yet, a growing body of literature opposes this view and asks for patent reform or even for the abolition of the patent system. In this work, which reviews the most recent literature on patents, we show that patents can have a negative impact on the dynamics of innovation. This is not due to some intrinsic properties of the patent system but to some of its recent evolutions which mean that, nowadays, too many patents are granted and that patent information is bad. The combination of those two elements explains most of the problems induced by modern patent systems such as hold-up (patent trolls), anti-commons (royalty stacking), and high transaction costs in markets for technology. We conclude by showing that realistic reforms can solve those problems and ensure that the patent system becomes again an instrument of dynamic efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Incentives, Patent, innovation policy, hold-up, trolls, anti-commons, markets for technology. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2014-02&r=ino |
| By: | Stefan Wagner (ESMT); Simon Wakeman (ESMT) |
| Abstract: | Patent-based measures are frequently used as indicators in empirical research on innovation and technology as well as on firms’ strategies and organizational choices to characterize inventions or, more generally, innovative activities and the technological capabilities of organizations. A clear correlation between the value of an invention and a number of patent indicators such as the number of citations received has been established. However, there is much less evidence of what patent-based indicators tell us about outcomes beyond patent value. Using data from the pharmaceutical industry, we investigate the relationship between the most frequently used indicators and the outcomes from the product development process. Our findings draw a complex picture regarding the information content of various patent indicators that bear important implications for the use and the proper interpretation of these indicators in settings where they are employed to describe outcomes beyond the patent system itself. |
| Keywords: | Patent indicators, patent system, product commercialization, pharmaceutical industry, drug development |
| Date: | 2014–01–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-14-01&r=ino |
| By: | Bošková, Iveta; Ratinger, Tomáš |
| Abstract: | The effective knowledge transfer and innovation activities in the agri-food supply chain may push all producers in the vertical to improve their competitiveness while saving resources. In the paper the innovation activities and knowledge transfer in the dairy value chain in the Czech Republic are examined in order to assess the potential for enhancing sustainable dairy production. A particular attention is given to the collaboration with R&D organisations and other important agents. Concurrently the role of the structural changes is considered. The methodological approach builds on the concept of the sectoral system of innovation. Based on statistical figures and face to face interviews the increasing dynamics in the innovation process is observed, however, farmers and processors are in their innovation activities disconnected and their collaboration with research institutions and other companies is rather low. The main innovation objectives as well as drivers and barriers of the collaboration are specified. |
| Keywords: | innovation system, dairy farms, dairy processing, Agribusiness, O31, Q13, Q16, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa140:163349&r=ino |
| By: | Stefano Breschi (CRIOS – Università Bocconi, Milan); Francesco Lissoni (GREThA – Université Montesquieu, Bordeaux IV and CRIOS – Università Bocconi, Milan); Gianluca Tarasconi (CRIOS – Università Bocconi, Milan) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the existing literature on migration and innovation, with special emphasis on empirical studies based on patent and inventor data. Other sources of micro-data are examined, too, for comparative purposes. A pilot database, based on patent filings at the European Patent Office is presented. It contains information on individual inventors, including their country of residence and of origin. Preliminary evidence suggests that immigrant inventors contribute to innovation not only in the US, but also in selected European countries, where they often rank among the most productive individuals. Data on returnee inventors to selected countries of origin suggest the phenomenon to be of limited scale, and highly subject to errors of measurement. |
| Keywords: | immigration, innovation, inventor data, patent data |
| JEL: | F22 O15 O31 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:17&r=ino |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Ufuk Akcigit; Murat Alp Celik |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that openness to new, unconventional and disruptive ideas has a first-order impact on creative innovations-innovations that break new ground in terms of knowledge creation. After presenting a motivating model focusing on the choice between incremental and radical innovation, and on how managers of different ages and human capital are sorted across different types of firms, we provide cross-country, firm-level and patent-level evidence consistent with this pattern. Our measures of creative innovations proxy for innovation quality (average number of citations per patent) and creativity (fraction of superstar innovators, the likelihood of a very high number of citations, and generality of patents). Our main proxy for openness to disruption is manager age. This variable is based on the idea that only companies or societies open to such disruption will allow the young to rise up within the hierarchy. Using this proxy at the country, firm or patent level, we present robust evidence that openness to disruption is associated with more creative innovations. |
| JEL: | O33 O40 O43 P10 P16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19894&r=ino |
| By: | Georg Zachmann; Amma Serwaah; Michele Peruzzi |
| Abstract: | See also blog post 'Does Europe need a renewables target?' Low-carbon energy technologies are pivotal for decarbonising our economies up to 2050 while ensuring secure and affordable energy. Consequently, innovation that reduces the cost of low-carbon energy would play an important role in reducing transition costs. We assess the two most prominent innovation policy instruments (i) public research, development and demonstration (RD&D) subsidies and (ii) public deployment policies. Our results indicate that both deployment and RD&D coincide with increasing knowledge generation and the improved competitiveness of renewable energy technologies. We find that both support schemes together have a greater effect that they would individually, that RD&D support is unsurprisingly more effective in driving patents and that timing matters. Current wind deployment based on past wind RD&D spending coincides best with wind patenting. If we look into competitiveness we find a similar picture, with the greatest effect coming from deployment. Finally, we find significant cross-border effects, especially for winddeployment. Increased deployment in one country coincides with increased patenting in nearby countries. Based on our findings we argue that both deployment and RD&D support are needed to create innovation in renewable energy technologies. However, we worry that current support is unbalanced. Public spending on deployment has been two orders of magnitude larger (in 2010 about â?¬48 billion in the five largest EU countries in 2010) than spending on RD&D support (about â?¬315 million). Consequently, basing the policy mix more on empirical evidence could increase the efficiency of innovation policy targeted towards renewable energy technologies |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bre:wpaper:811&r=ino |
| By: | Gault F.; Kuusisto J.; Niemi M. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | Statistics Finland added questions to the Finnish Community Innovation Survey CIS for 2010 on the importance of user innovation. For firms engaged in innovation activity during the three year period, 2008-2010, 30 per cent reported that user modified products were of high or medium importance to them. For user developed products the figure was 13 per cent. These firms, compared with those that did not rank user innovation as highly, had a higher propensity to produce new to the market product innovations and they were more active in producing product innovations by themselves, by collaborating with others, by adapting and adopting products from other firms, and by using products from other firms. The results for user modified and user developed products were found to be consistent with responses to a standard CIS question on whether the product innovation of the firm was done by adapting products developed by others, but the results were not sufficient to say that responses to this question were a consequence, principally, of user innovation. The wider implications of the findings are discussed along with the need for confirmation of the findings in other countries. Both Portugal and Switzerland have incorporated the Finnish CIS 2010 questions into their CIS 2012 and have added additional questions which may show that existing CIS data provide information on the presence of user innovation. |
| Keywords: | Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes; |
| JEL: | D22 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014003&r=ino |
| By: | William R. Kerr (University, NBER, and Bank of Finland.) |
| Abstract: | High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Immigrants account for roughly a quarter of U.S. workers in these fields, and they have a similar contribution in terms of output measures like patents or firm starts. This contribution has been rapidly growing over the last three decades. In terms of quality, the average skilled immigrant appears to be better trained to work in these fields, but conditional on educational attainment of comparable quality to natives. The exception to this is that immigrants have a disproportionate impact among the very highest achievers (e.g., Nobel Prize winners). Studies regarding the impact of immigrants on natives tend to find limited consequences in the short-run, while the results in the long-run are more varied and much less certain. Immigrants in the United States aid business and technology exchanges with their home countries, but the overall effect that the migration has on the home country remains unclear. We know very little about return migration of workers engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, except that it is rapidly growing in importance. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, innovation, entrepreneurship, diaspora |
| JEL: | F15 F22 J15 J31 J44 L14 L26 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:16&r=ino |
| By: | Paul David (Stanford University); Adriaan van Zon (United Nations University) |
| Abstract: | The research reported here gives priority to understanding the inter-temporal resource allocation requirements of a program of technological changes that could halt global warming by completing the transition to a "green" (zero net CO2- emission) production regime within the possibly brief finite interval that remains before Earth's climate is driven beyond a catastrophic tipping point. This paper formulates a multi-phase, just-in-time transition model incorporating carbon-based and carbon-free technical options requiring physical embodiment in durable production facilities, and having performance attributes that are amenable to enhancement by directed R&D expenditures. Transition paths that indicate the best ordering and durations of the phases in which intangible and tangible capital formation is taking place, and capital stocks of different types are being utilized in production, or scrapped when replaced types embodying socially more efficient technologies, are obtained from optimizing solutions for each of a trio of related models that couple the global macro-economy's dynamics with the dynamics of the climate system. They describe the flows of consumption, CO2 emissions and the changing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gas (which drives global warming), along with the investment dynamics required for the timely transformation of the production regime. |
| Keywords: | global warming, tipping point, catastrophic climate instability, extreme weather†related damages, R&D, directed technical change, capitalâ€embodied technologies, optimal sequencing, multiâ€phase optimal control, sustainable endogenous growth |
| JEL: | Q54 Q55 O31 O32 O3 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sip:dpaper:12-029&r=ino |
| By: | Mafini Dosso |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses the transitional phase of the French innovation system focusing on the activities that influence the development and diffusion of innovations. It shows that the current system combined persistent elements of the traditional mission-oriented model with new systemic institutional structures, thus lengthening the transition towards a new model of innovation. Indeed the introduction of a bulk of reforms in a very short time, the lack of a clear long run agenda, the institutional inconsistencies have blurred the research and innovation policy trajectory and may affect the performances of France's innovation system in the coming years. |
| Keywords: | French innovation policies and system, activities, restructuring |
| Date: | 2014–04–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2014/05&r=ino |
| By: | Capasso M.; Treibich T.G.; Verspagen H.H.G. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the medium-term effect of RD expenditure on firm employment growth. Four cross-sectional waves of an innovation survey conducted in the Netherlands have been used to evaluate the effect on firm growth in the five years following the investment. Panel data fixed effect techniques, also allowing for selection bias corrections, indicate a positive influence of RD on growth. Limited dependent variable models have been used throughout the whole analysis to consider explicitly the cases of firms exiting the market in the analysed medium term. |
| Keywords: | Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance: General; Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior: General; Management of Technological Innovation and R&D; |
| JEL: | L20 L10 O32 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014001&r=ino |
| By: | Balsmeier, Benjamin; Czarnitzki, Dirk |
| Abstract: | This study examines how industry-specific managerial experience affects firms' innovation performance in the context of different institutional environments. Based on firm-level data from 27 Central and Eastern European countries we identify a robust positive relationship between industry-specific experience of the top-manager and the decision to innovate as well as the share of new product-related sales. These effects are particularly pronounced for small firms operating outside the European Union or, more generally, in institutionally less developed countries. The results suggest that managerial experience affects firm innovations largely indirectly, for example, by reducing uncertainty about future returns on innovations or by providing knowledge about how to cope with institutional shortfalls potentially hampering the commercial success of new products. -- |
| Keywords: | Corporate Governance,Innovation,Managerial Experience |
| JEL: | G38 L25 O32 P26 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14011&r=ino |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Rexhäuser, Sascha; Veugelers, Reinhilde |
| Abstract: | This study investigates productivity effects to firms introducing new environmental technologies. The literature on within-firm organisational change and productivity suggests that firms can get higher productivity effects from adopting new technologies if complementary organisational changes are adopted simultaneously. Such complementarity effects may be of critical importance for the case of adoption of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement technologies. The adoption of these technologies is often induced by public authorities to limit social costs of climate change, whereas the private returns are much less obvious. We find empirical support for complementarity between green technology adoption and organisational change for a sample of firms located in Germany. The adoption of CO2 reducing and sustainable technologies innovations is associated with lower productivity. The simultaneous implementation of organisational innovations, however, increases the returns to the adoption of green technologies. -- |
| Keywords: | technical change,environmental innovation,organisational change,productivity |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:12043r&r=ino |
| By: | Ajay Agrawal (University of Toronto and NBER.) |
| Abstract: | I summarize key findings from the literature on how distance, relationships, and ethnic ties influence knowledge flows and describe a model that relates emigration and the diaspora to knowledge flows. I then recap a key study that reports evidence of a link from the diaspora and knowledge flows to home country manufacturing productivity. Next, I summarize the ways in which intellectual property protection may influence knowledge flow patterns through incentives (market for ideas) and disincentives (anticommons). Finally, I speculate on how diaspora knowledge flows and intellectual property may alleviate developing country low-productivity equilibria (“poverty traps”) caused by an underinvestment in specialized human capital. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:15&r=ino |
| By: | Joy Buchanan (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University); Bart Wilson (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment to explore whether the protection of intellectual property (IP) incentivizes people to create non-rivalrous knowledge goods, foregoing the production of other rivalrous goods. In the contrasting treatment with no IP protection, participants are free to resell and remake non-rivalrous knowledge goods originally created by others. We find that creators reap substantial profits when IP is protected and that rampant pirating is common when there is no IP protection, but IP protection in and of itself is neither necessary nor sufficient for generating wealth from the discovery of knowledge goods. Rather, individual entrepreneurship is the key. Length: 36 |
| Keywords: | intellectual property, experimental economics |
| JEL: | C92 D89 K39 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gms:wpaper:1044&r=ino |