nep-tid New Economics Papers
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics
Issue of 2009‒11‒21
three papers chosen by
Rui Baptista
Technical University of Lisbon

  1. What explains the evolution of productivity and competitiveness? The innovation link By Jaumandreu, Jordi
  2. Collective Rights Organizations and Upstream R&D Investment By Aoki, Reiko; Schiff, Aaron
  3. User, and Open Collaborative Innovation: Ascendent Economic Models By Carliss Y. Baldwin; Eric von Hippel

  1. By: Jaumandreu, Jordi (IESE Business School)
    Abstract: This paper addresses the recent evolution of productivity and competitiveness in Catalonia and their links with the innovation activity of firms. Firstly, it summarizes the evolution of productivity, competitiveness, firms' strategies and the state of innovation. A slowdown in productivity growth and increasing revealed difficulties in some world markets are real, and the weakness of innovation may be a reason. The paper then quantifies some of the links between innovation, productivity and competitiveness. Innovation has a positive impact on productivity and competitiveness. First of all, innovation expenditures induce cost advantages and these cost advantages are a significant explanation for firms' exports. Furthermore, product innovation helps exports, too. Moreover, R&D activities in Catalonia benefit from high spillovers, and productivity impact is even higher when firms develop R&D activities outside as well. Despite all this, the current level of innovation expenditure is comparatively low and shows signs of lack of dynamism. Firms need to switch from the current equilibrium to the requirements of the coming years.
    Keywords: Labor productivity; Competitiveness; innovation; cost;
    Date: 2009–07–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0804&r=tid
  2. By: Aoki, Reiko; Schiff, Aaron
    Abstract: We examine the effect of collective rights organizations (CROs) on upstream innovation. CROs are established to facilitate downstream use, such as production and downstream innovation, of upstream intellectual property. We compare CROs with two alternative royalty redistribution rules, two different upstream innovation environments and two different anti-trust rules. Most CROs increase upstream R&D incentives by increasing licensing profit but this may lead to over-investment. We observe that when the market is ex-ante asymmetric (only one firm has ability to develop one of the technologies), unequal royalty distribution in favor of the one firm may be ex-post efficient but may result in under investment in the complementary technology. Thus in addition to balancing the trade-off between ex-ante (dynamic) efficiency and ex-post (static) efficiency as in the case of a single intellectual property, CROs must achieve the balance among members.
    Keywords: Intellectual property, patent licensing, collective rights organizations, anticommons, anti-trust, royalty
    JEL: L24 O31 O34
    Date: 2009–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:piecis:457&r=tid
  3. By: Carliss Y. Baldwin (Harvard Business School, Finance Unit); Eric von Hippel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
    Abstract: In this paper we assess the economic viability of innovation by producers relative to two increasingly important alternative models: innovations by single user individuals or firms, and open collaborative innovation projects. We analyze the design costs and architectures and communication costs associated with each model. We conclude that innovation by individual users and also open collaborative innovation increasingly compete with - and may displace -producer innovation in many parts of the economy. We argue that a transition from producer innovation to open single user and open collaborative innovation is desirable in terms of social welfare, and so worthy of support by policymakers.
    Date: 2009–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-038&r=tid

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