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on Innovation |
| By: | Tom Broekel; Torben Klarl; ; ; |
| Abstract: | Innovations are widely accepted as fundamental drivers of economic growth by increasing productivity and creating new markets. However, empirical evidence on the long-term relationship between technological progress and economic growth remains scarce, with few studies considering shifts in technologies’ fundamental properties, such as their degree of complexity. Yet, higher levels of complexity are argued to increase technologies’ economic potential, and consequently, ignoring this dimension of technologies provides an incomplete picture of innovations’ growth effects. We address this research gap by exploring the relationship between economic growth and technological complexity over more than 170 years in the United States (US). Utilizing patent data, the concept of the complexity frontier, and partial wavelet analysis, we find that economic growth has not been driven by patented innovation and technological complexity for most of this period. However, since the beginning of the ICT revolution in the 1990s, it has significantly contributed to GDP growth. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Economic Growth, Technological Complexity, USA, Complexity Frontier, Wavelt Analysis |
| JEL: | O30 O47 N10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2427 |
| By: | Filimonovic, Dragan; Macher, Jeffrey T.; Rutzer, Christian; Weder, Rolf |
| Abstract: | We examine whether 'pioneer' regions - early leaders in generating new ideas in emerging scientific fields - develop and maintain an innovation advantage in the same fields over time. Our analysis covers 24 disruptive technologies (e.g. AI, cloud computing) in thousands of OECD regions over 20 years. The results show that pioneer regions gain a significant and growing innovation advantage over non-pioneer regions. This advantage is most pronounced in "super-cluster" regions, which are leaders in both science and related innovation. These findings highlight the importance of early scientific leadership for sustained regional innovation and suggest important policy implications. |
| Keywords: | Science, Innovation, Regional Advantage, Emerging Technology |
| JEL: | O30 O33 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2024/11 |
| By: | Ron Boschma; Rune Fitjar; Elisa Giuliani; Simona Iammarino; |
| Abstract: | Notwithstanding the wide consensus around the undeniable positive effects of innovation, there is increasing awareness that innovations may also have their dark sides. These dark sides of innovations have received little attention in regional studies. This editorial to a special issue on The Dark Side of Innovation and its Geography argues there are clear geographical footprints to this, which are related to both the inputs and the outcomes of innovation processes. In particular, we discuss how innovation activities have geographically uneven outcomes, driving spatial inequality, and how they require material inputs located in certain places, meaning that their costs are also unevenly distributed across space. |
| Keywords: | dark side of innovation, harmful innovations, critical and conflict materials, regional inequality, geography of innovation |
| JEL: | O25 O30 O31 O33 Q34 Q55 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2428 |
| By: | James Bessen; Iain Cockburn; Jennifer Hunt |
| Abstract: | Using our own data on artificial intelligence publications merged with Burning Glass vacancy data for 2007-2019, we investigate whether online vacancies for jobs requiring AI skills grow more slowly in US locations farther from pre-2007 AI innovation hotspots. We find that a commuting zone which is an additional 200km (125 miles) from the closest AI hotspot has 17% lower growth in AI jobs' share of vacancies. This is driven by distance from AI papers rather than AI patents. Distance reduces growth in AI research jobs as well as in jobs adapting AI to new industries, as evidenced by strong effects for computer and mathematical researchers, developers of software applications, and the finance and insurance industry. 20% of the effect is explained by the presence of state borders between some commuting zones and their closest hotspot. This could reflect state borders impeding migration and thus flows of tacit knowledge. Distance does not capture difficulty of in-person or remote collaboration nor knowledge and personnel flows within multi-establishment firms hiring in computer occupations. |
| Keywords: | Technological change, Economic geography, Growth |
| Date: | 2024–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2038 |
| By: | Hans Degryse (KU Leuven and CEPR); Olivier De Jonghe (National Bank of Belgium, Economics and Research Department, European Central Bank, Tilburg University and Ghent University); Leonardo Gambacorta (Bank for International Settlements and CEPR); Cédric Huylebroek (KU Leuven and FWO) |
| Abstract: | Theory offers conflicting predictions on whether and how lenders’ sectoral specialization would affect firms’ innovation activities. We show that the sign and magnitude of this effect vary with the degree of “asset overhang” across sectors, which is the risk that a new technology has negative spillovers on the value of a bank’s legacy loan portfolio. Using both patent data and micro-level innovation survey data, we find that lenders’ sectoral specialization improves innovation for firms operating in sectors with low asset overhang, but impedes innovation for firms operating in sectors with high asset overhang. These results hold for two distinct measures of asset overhang and using bank mergers as a source of exogenous variation in bank specialization. We further show that these heterogeneous effects arise through financial contracting. Overall, our findings provide novel insights into the dual facets of bank specialization and, more broadly, the link between banking and innovation |
| Keywords: | Bank specialization, Bank lending, Corporate innovation, Asset overhang, Financial frictions |
| JEL: | G20 O30 L20 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:202410-458 |
| By: | Marco Cucculelli (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze economiche e sociali); Noemi Giampaoli (Polytechnic University of Marche, Department of Economics and Social Sciences,); Matteo Renghini (LUISS "Guido Carli" University, Department of Economics and Finance) |
| Abstract: | Assessing the presence and distribution of strategic and net-zero technologies in companies is crucial for European competitiveness. However, due to the complexity and evolving nature of these technology areas, this is a challenging task. This paper presents a process for identifying and mapping strategic and net-zero technologies (as described in the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) and the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA)) in European companies. STEP and NZIA technologies are identified using text mining techniques based on the titles and abstracts of patents filed with the EPO and retrieved in PATSTAT for the years 2002 to 2022. The paper describes the classification process of STEP and NZIA technologies based on IPC codes of file patents. The IPC codes were then matched with the patent portfolio of almost 100, 000 European companies to determine the company's technological profile and the distribution of these technologies by sector, geographic area, and company characteristics in the European panorama. |
| Keywords: | PATSTAT, Orbis, Patents, Text mining, Innovation, STEP, NZIA, Unconventional data |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wmofir:188 |
| By: | Grimaud, André; Gray, Elie |
| Abstract: | We formalize inter-sectoral knowledge diffusion in a standard fully endogenous Schumpeterian growth model. Each sector is simultaneously sending and receiving knowledge; thereby, to produce new knowledge, the research and development activity of each sector draws from a pool of knowledge which stems from this diffusion. This enables us to revisit the scale effects issue by revealing how this property (inconsistent with empirical evidence) relates with knowledge diffusion (the importance of which is empirically highlighted). We show that suppressing knowledge diffusion across sectors is a sufficient but not necessary condition for obtaining scale-invariancy. Then, we identify several sets of assumptions which enable us to obtain models which are reasonably consistent with empirical evidence both on scale effects and how knowledge diffuses in the economy. Specifically, these models do not exhibit scale effects (or at least not significant ones) while considering various scope of knowledge diffusion (including possible occurrence of general-purpose technologies). |
| Keywords: | Schumpeterian growth theory, Scale effects, Knowledge diffusion, Knowledge; spillovers, Non rivalry, echnological distance |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O33 O40 O41 |
| Date: | 2024–09–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:129742 |
| By: | Paul Bergin; Ling Feng; Ching-Yi Lin |
| Abstract: | While the trade literature has tended to view export activity and innovation as complementary activities, we present evidence that financial constraints are a reason the two activities can act as substitutes for small exporters. In particular, we find that small exporters have lower expenditure on R&D than comparable non-exporters, and we find a corresponding pattern in the leverage ratio of the capital structure of small firms. A model that combines firm decisions regarding the amount of innovation, exporting, and endogenous financial capital structure is able to account for these empirical findings. The model implies that small firms are unable to fully reap the gains from exporting due to financial constraints, as they reduce R&D to finance the costs of export participation. |
| JEL: | E44 F41 G32 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32904 |
| By: | Christophe André; Peter Gal |
| Abstract: | This review takes stock of the large body of evidence on aggregate productivity growth, its structural drivers, and the role of a wide range of policies. It aims to synthesise evidence on how public policies can promote productivity through their impacts on both the incentives and the capabilities of businesses and workers, taking account of different specificities of firms at the frontier and below, and integrating complementarities across policy areas. It also identifies gaps in knowledge, thus offering potential directions for future work. |
| Keywords: | Economic policy, Efficiency frontier, Entrepreneurship, Firm Performance, Intangible capital, Investment, Productivity, Technological diffusion |
| JEL: | D24 E22 E24 E6 J24 L25 L26 L5 O31 O32 O33 O38 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1822-en |
| By: | Fitzgerald, Jack |
| Abstract: | Moscona & Sastry (2023, Quarterly Journal of Economics) - henceforth MS23 - find that cropland values are significantly less damaged by extreme heat exposure (EHE) when crops are more exposed to technological innovation. However, MS23's 'innovation exposure' variable does not measure innovation, instead proxying innovation using a measure of crops' national heat exposure. A re-examination of MS23's replication data - which permits a close but inexact reproduction of MS23's published findings - shows that this proxy moderates EHE impacts for reasons unrelated to innovation. The proxy is practically identical to local EHE, so MS23's models examining interaction effects between their proxy and local EHE effectively interact local EHE with itself. I document extensive evidence that MS23's findings on 'innovation exposure' are simply artefacts of nonlinear impacts in local EHE, and uncover robustness issues for other key findings. I then construct direct measures of innovation exposure from MS23's crop variety and patenting data. Replacing MS23's proxy with these direct innovation measures decreases MS23's moderating effect estimates by at least 99.8% in standardized units; none of these new estimates are statistically significantly different from zero. Similar results arise from an instrumental variables strategy that instruments my direct innovation measures with MS23's heat proxy. These results cast doubt on the general capacity for market innovations to mitigate agricultural damage from climate change. |
| JEL: | O31 Q10 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:158 |
| By: | TORRECILLAS CARO Cristina; MERIDA MARTIN Fernando (European Commission - JRC); SASSO Simone (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | Innovation and entrepreneurship can play a central role in revitalizing rural areas and turning them into places of opportunity. This report, part of the Startup Village Forum initiative’s research activities, explores four cases of rural villages or groups of villages on their journey toward fostering innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Using the Startup Village Conceptualization framework, it assesses resource endowments, institutional arrangements, stakeholder engagement, and outcomes. The findings underscore the importance of institutional support, collaborative leadership, and skill development for successful startup villages, advocating for bottom-up governance and network establishment to drive rural development. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc137918 |