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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Vincent Van Roy (European Commission - JRC); Daniel Nepelski (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | High-tech entrepreneurship is one of the main means by which new knowledge and technologies are converted into economic and social benefits. This report analyses the levels and determinants of high-tech entrepreneurship across European countries. To this end, it uses country-level data on high- and low-tech total early-stage entrepreneurial activity provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Panel data estimations for the period 2007-2014 reveal that EU Member States with better access to finance, less bureaucracy, more consistent policy regimes, favourable entrepreneurship education, and qualitative intellectual property rights that lower patent thicketing strategies exhibit a higher proportion of high-tech firm creation. In addition, greater technological density is associated with a higher rate of high-tech entrepreneurship creation, suggesting beneficial influences of path-dependency and agglomeration effects. |
| Keywords: | ecosystem; financial; growth; ICT; indicator; innovation; policy; research; industry |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc104865&r=tid |
| By: | Caterina Giannetti |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the level of debt specialization across European firms relying on a cross-country comparable sample of manufacturing firms. We find a non-linear relationship between firm debt specialization (i.e. composition of the various types of debt) and firm size and age. In line with previous evidence for US firms, we observe that small and young firms have a more concentrated debt structure (i.e. they rely on few types of debt). Relying on quasi-experimental setting, we also find that firms having a diversified debt structure are less likely to experience a severe reduction in turnover.Creation-Date: 2016-01-01 |
| Keywords: | Debt concentration, European firm financing, Generalized propensity score. |
| JEL: | C24 G31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pie:dsedps:2016/211&r=tid |
| By: | Aaron Chatterji |
| Abstract: | Economists have long believed education is essential to the acquisition of human capital and contributes to economic growth. However, education researchers, political and business leaders and other stakeholders have raised concerns about the quality and costs of the K-12 education system in the United States and the implications for the development of the nation’s future workforce. Some of these groups have called for more innovation in K-12 education, leveraging technology in the classroom and experimenting with different organizing models for schools, both as a means to lower costs and increase quality. To shed light on the prospects of this approach, I review the economics literature at the intersection between innovation and K-12 education from two different, but related, perspectives. First, I summarize the evidence about the efficacy of technological and other kinds of innovation in the classroom. Second, I discuss the state of research on how the American K-12 system influences the production of innovators and entrepreneurs. In both instances, I identify implications for policy and opportunities for future research to generate actionable insights, particularly around increasing the low levels of research and development in the education sector. |
| JEL: | H52 I20 I21 I28 O30 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23531&r=tid |
| By: | Green, David; Morissette, Rene; Sand, Benjamin M. |
| Abstract: | Since 2000, US real average wages have either stagnated or declined while Canadian average wages increased by almost 10%. We investigate the role of the Canadian resource boom in explaining this difference. We construct a model of wage setting that allows for spillover effects of a resource boom on wages in non-resource intensive locations and formulate an empirical specification based on that model. A key feature of this (and other) resource booms was the prevalence of long distance commuting - working in a resource location but residing in another community. The core idea in our model is that the expansion of the value of the commuting option during the boom allowed non-commuters to bargain higher wages. We find that wages do rise in areas with more long distance commuting. Combining these spillover effects with bargaining spillover effects in resource boom locations, we can account for 49% of the increase in the real mean wage in Canada between 2000 and 2012. We find similar effects of long distance commuting on wages in the US but the resource boom was less salient in the US and the effect on wages was one-tenth of that in Canada. Our results have implications for other papers measuring the impacts of resource booms on wages in surrounding areas. Our main finding is that long-distance commuting can integrate regions in a way that spreads the benefits and costs of a boom across the economy. |
| Keywords: | Wages, Resource Boom, Inequality |
| JEL: | J30 |
| Date: | 2017–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:pmicro:-2017-7&r=tid |
| By: | Kesavayuth, Dusanee; Lee, Sang-Ho; Zikos, Vasileios |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we consider a duopoly with product differentiation and examine the interaction between merger and innovation incentives. The analysis reveals that a merger tends to discourage innovation, unless the investment cost is sufficiently low. This result holds whether or not side payments between firms are allowed. When side payments are permitted, a bilateral merger-to-monopoly is always profitable, a standard result in the literature. When side payments are not permitted, however, we show that a merger is not profitable when the efficiency of the new technology is relatively high and the investment cost is below a particular level. |
| Keywords: | Merger, R&D, innovation, differentiated products |
| JEL: | D21 L13 L41 O31 |
| Date: | 2017–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79821&r=tid |
| By: | Glitz, Albrecht (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Meyersson, Erik (Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the economic returns to industrial espionage by linking information from East Germany's foreign intelligence service to sector-specific gaps in total factor productivity (TFP) between West and East Germany. Based on a dataset that comprises the entire flow of information provided by East German informants over the period 1970–1989, we document a significant narrowing of sectoral West-to-East TFP gaps as a result of East Germany's industrial espionage. This central finding holds across a wide range of specifications and is robust to the inclusion of several alternative proxies for technology transfer. We further demonstrate that the economic returns to industrial espionage are primarily driven by relatively few high quality pieces of information and particularly strong in sectors that were closer to the West German technological frontier. Based on our findings, we estimate that the average TFP gap between West and East Germany at the end of the Cold War would have been 6.3 percentage points larger had the East not engaged in industrial espionage. |
| Keywords: | espionage, productivity, R&D, technology diffusion |
| JEL: | D24 F52 N34 N44 O30 O47 P26 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10816&r=tid |
| By: | Stockinger, Bastian (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "This study investigates the effects of local broadband internet availability on establishment- level employment growth. The analysis uses data for Germany in the years 2005-2009, when broadband was introduced in rural regions of Western Germany and in large parts of Eastern Germany. Technical frictions in broadband rollout are exploited to obtain exogenous variation in local broadband availability. The results suggest that broadband expansion had a positive effect on employment growth in the Western German service sector and a negative effect in Western German manufacturing. This pattern of results is driven by pronounced positive effects in knowledge- and computer-intensive industries, suggesting that it is the actual use of broadband in the production process that leads to complementary hiring, respectively a slowdown of employment growth, in the respective sectors. For Eastern Germany, no significant employment growth effects are found." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | J63 O33 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201719&r=tid |
| By: | Yilmaz Kiliçaslan (Anadolu University); Ünal Töngür |
| Abstract: | This study aims to examine the impact of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on employment generation in the Turkish manufacturing industry. This study is said to be the first attempt in exploring the impact of ICT on employment generation in Turkish manufacturing industry at the firm level. The analysis is based on firm level data obtained from Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) and covers the period from 2003 to 2013. The data used in the analysis includes all firms employing 20 or more employees in Turkish manufacturing industry. Our findings based on system GMM estimations show that ICT has employment-enhancing effects in Turkish manufacturing. Moreover, our results provide the evidence that tangible ICT capital has stronger employment generation impact than that of intangible ICT capital in medium-tech and low-tech industries. |
| Date: | 2017–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erg:wpaper:1120&r=tid |
| By: | Javier Cravino (University of Michigan and NBER); Sebastian Sotelo (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | We study how international trade affects manufacturing employment and the relative wage of unskilled workers when goods and services are traded with different intensities. Manufacturing trade reduces manufacturing prices worldwide, which reduces manufacturing employment if manufactures and services are complements. We document that manufacturing production is unskilled-labor intensive, so that these changes increase the skill-premium. We incorporate this mechanism in a quantitative trade model and show that trade has had a negative impact on manufacturing employment and the relative wage of unskilled workers. The impact on the skill premium was larger in developing countries where manufacturing is particularly unskilled-labor intensive. |
| Keywords: | Trade, Skill Premium, Manufacturing Employment, Structural Change, Gains From Trade |
| JEL: | F16 F62 F63 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mie:wpaper:658&r=tid |
| By: | Rune Dahl Fitjar Author-X-Name-First: Rune Dahl; Bram Timmermans Author-X-Name-First: Bram |
| Abstract: | Two ideas have emerged as central in evolutionary economic geography in recent years: First, innovation is often the result of meetings between related ideas, and regions are therefore best served by hosting a variety of related industries. Second, innovation often comes from the combination of different knowledge bases. However, there have been few attempts at linking these approaches in empirical studies. This paper connects the dots by examining relatedness among industries with similar and different knowledge bases in specific regional contexts. We focus on regions expected to have different types of innovation systems, from the organisationally thick and diversified RIS of large cities through the more specialised RIS in intermediate cities to the organisationally thin RIS found in small rural regions. The analysis finds that industries with different knowledge bases are related in various regional settings, with combinatorial knowledge base industries having a central role in many regions. However, there are also cases of potential lock-in, where relatedness is mainly found among regions with the same knowledge base. Length: |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1712&r=tid |