|
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Nicholas Bloom; Raffaella Sadun; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | Are some management practices akin to a technology that can explain company and national productivity, or do they simply reflect contingent management styles? We collect data on core management practices from over 11,000 firms in 34 countries. We find large cross-country differences in the adoption of basic management practices, with the US having the highest size-weighted average management score. We present a formal model of \Management as a Technology", and structurally estimate it using panel data to recover parameters including the depreciation rate and adjustment costs of managerial capital (both found to be larger than for tangible non-managerial capital). Our model also predicts (i) a positive effect of management on firm performance; (ii) a positive relationship between product market competition and average management quality (part of which stems from the larger covariance between management with firm size as competition strengthens); and (iii) a rise (fall) in the level (dispersion) of management with firm age. We find strong empirical support for all of these predictions in our data. Finally, building on our model, we find that differences in management practices account for about 30% of cross-country total factor productivity differences. |
| Keywords: | management practices, productivity, competition |
| JEL: | L2 M2 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1433&r=tid |
| By: | Broström, Anders (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Lööf, Hans (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Nabavi, Pardis (Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum & Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how incumbent firm characteristics affect the viability of its spinoffs. The survival patterns of spinoffs with roots in exporting firms and in technologically innovative firms are compared to the survival of other spinoffs. Using comprehensive Swedish employer-employee panel data sets, three possible outcomes are identified: survival,acquisition and complete exit from the market. Experience from an exporting parent is positively associated with spinoff survival. These inheritance benefits do, however, decrease with the tenure of ex-employees. This suggests that inherited advantages in this case is not primarily driven by enhanced opportunities for on-the-job learning. Above-average attractiveness to employees, and associated ability sorting and opportunity costs mechanisms, provides explanations for the superior survival of spin-offs from exporting firms that seem more congruent with data. The study also suggest that technological innovativeness, captured by parent's patenting activity, is negatively associated with spinoff survival when controlling for exports. This result support the view that knowledge inside innovative firms is "sticky" and not easily transferable to new ventures by ex-employees. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; exports; organizational heritage; innovation; spinoff; entrepreneurial spawning |
| JEL: | C25 F14 L26 M13 O33 |
| Date: | 2016–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0437&r=tid |
| By: | Kerr, William R.; Nanda, Ramana |
| Abstract: | We review the recent literature on the financing of innovation, inclusive of large companies and new startups. This research strand has been very active over the past five years, generating important new findings, questioning some long-held beliefs, and creating its own puzzles. Our review outlines the growing body of work that documents a role for debt financing related to innovation. We highlight the new literature on learning and experimentation across multi-stage innovation projects and how this impacts optimal financing design. We further highlight the strong interaction between financing choices for innovation and changing external conditions, especially reduced experimentation costs. |
| Keywords: | finance, innovation, entrepreneurship, banks, venture capital, experimentation |
| JEL: | G21 G24 L26 M13 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2015–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofrdp:2015_028&r=tid |
| By: | MURAKAMI Hiroki |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present a model which enables us to look into the process of research and development (R&D) for product innovation in the presence of the product life cycle and the resultant firm or economic growth. Specifically, we describe R&D for product innovation as an activity to control the birth rate of a new product, which measures the probability of product innovation; derive the optimal birth rate of a new product, which determines the size of R&D expenditure; and examine the growth rate of the (representative) firm('s expected total revenue) along the optimal R&D plan. We then find that the growth rate of the firm converges to the optimal birth rate of a new product in the long run. |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:16032&r=tid |
| By: | Wei Jin (School of Economics, UNSW Business School, The University of New South Wales and School of Public Policy and Management, Zhejiang University); ZhongXiang Zhang (College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University) |
| Abstract: | Whether China continues its business-as-usual investment-driven, environment-polluting growth pattern or adopts an investment and innovation-driven, environmentally sustainable development holds important implications for both national and global environmental governance. Building on a Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans growth model that features endogenous technological change induced by R&D and knowledge stock accumulation, this paper presents an exposition, both analytically and numerically, of the mechanism underlining China’s economic transition from an investment-driven, pollution-intensive to an investment and innovation-driven, environmentally sustainable growth path. We show that if R&D technological innovation is incorporated into China’s growth mechanism, then at some tipping point in time when marginal welfare gain of R&D for knowledge accumulation becomes equalized with that of investment for physical asset deployment, China’s economy will launch capital investment and R&D simultaneously and make a transition to a sustainable growth path along which consumption, capital investment, and R&D have a balanced share of 5: 4: 1, consumption, capital stock, and knowledge stock all grow at a rate of 4.9%, and environmental quality improves at a rate of 2.5%. In contrast, if R&D technological innovation is not harnessed as a new growth engine, then China’s economy will follow its business-as-usual investment-driven growth path along which standalone accumulation of dirty physical capital stock will lead to an more than 200-fold increase in environmental pollution. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous Technological Change, Sustainable Development, Economic Growth Model, China’s Economic Transition |
| JEL: | Q55 Q58 Q43 Q48 O13 O31 O33 O44 F18 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2016.24&r=tid |
| By: | Christopoulos, George (UNU‐MERIT, Maastricht University); Wintjes, René (UNU‐MERIT, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a new approach for the definition of innovation clusters, based on the co-location of concentrated patenting and manufacturing activity in the EU. The incorporation of data on both the production and use of technologies results in an indicator that depicts both formal and informal modes of innovation and conditions which can be expected to be conducive to the generation, diffusion and absorption of innovation, and consequently the enhancement of competitiveness. Our findings indicate that certain types of patenting and manufacturing activity tend to co-locate. The sectoral-technological composition of the three types of concentrations observed points towards a higher level of diversity than one would expect in the case of narrow specialisation. Applying the new indicator in a test of the often hypothesised benefits of innovative clustering, we find that the identified clusters have consistently higher wages in the sectors concerned. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, clusters, regional studies, patenting, manufacturing |
| JEL: | O30 R12 L60 |
| Date: | 2016–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2016023&r=tid |
| By: | Carlino, Gerald; Kerr, William R. |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. We first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. We then discuss how these factors are frequently measured in the data and note some resulting empirical regularities. Innovative activity tends to be more concentrated than industrial activity, and we discuss important findings from the literature about why this is so. We highlight the traits of cities (e.g., size, industrial diversity) that theoretical and empirical work link to innovation, and we discuss factors that help sustain these features (e.g., the localization of entrepreneurial finance). |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, clusters, innovation, invention, entrepreneurship |
| JEL: | J2 J6 L1 L2 L6 O3 R1 R3 |
| Date: | 2015–12–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofrdp:2015_027&r=tid |
| By: | Sándor Juhász; Balázs Lengyel |
| Abstract: | Knowledge networks in industrial clusters are frequently analyzed but we know very little about creation and persistence of ties in these networks. We argue that tie creation primarily depends on opportunities and thus the position ofactors in the network and in space; while tie persistence is influenced by the value of the tie. Accordingly, results from a Hungarian printing and paper product cluster suggest that reciprocity, triadic closure, and geographical proximity between firms increase the probability of tie creation. Tie persistence is positively affected by technological proximity between firms and the number of their extra-regional ties. |
| Keywords: | knowledge networks, clusters, network dynamics, stochastic actor-oriented models |
| JEL: | D85 L14 R11 O31 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1613&r=tid |