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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Lee Branstetter; Neil Gandal; Nadav Kuniesky |
| Abstract: | A large and growing literature has used patent and patent citation data to measure knowledge spillovers across inventions and organizations, but relatively few papers in this literature have explicitly considered the collaboration networks formed by inventors as a mechanism for shaping and transmitting these knowledge flows. This paper utilizes an approach developed by Fershtman and Gandal (2011) to examine the incidence and nature of knowledge flows mediated by the collaboration networks of inventors active in the information security industry. This is an industry in which a number of nations outside the United States, including Israel, have emerged as important centers of innovation. Using data from U.S. PTO patent grants in information security, we find that the quality of Israeli information security inventions is systematically linked to the structure of the collaborative network generated by Israeli inventors in this sector. Using the Fershtman and Gandal (2011) model, this suggests that there are knowledge spillovers from the network. In some other nations, invention quality is less closely linked to the collaboration networks of inventors. This research highlights the importance of direct interaction among inventors as a conduit for flows of frontier scientific knowledge. |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O57 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23808&r=tid |
| By: | Carlino, Gerald A. (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the enforceability of employee non-compete agreements affects the entry of new establishments and jobs created by these new firms. We use a panel of startup activity for the U.S. states for the period 1977 to 2013. We exploit Michigan’s inadvertent policy reversal in 1985 that transformed the state from a non-enforcing to an enforcing state as a quasi-natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of enforcement on startup activity. Our findings offer little support for the widely held view that enforcement of non-compete agreements negatively affects the entry rate of new firms or the rate of jobs created by new firms. In a difference-in-difference analysis, we find that a 10 percent increase in enforcement led to an increase of about 1 percent to about 3 percent in the startup job creation rate in Michigan and, in general, to essentially no change in the startup entry rate. Extending our analysis to consider the effect of increased enforcement on patent activity, we find that enforcement had differential effects across technological classifications. Importantly, increased enforcement had a positive and significant effect on the number of quality-adjusted mechanical patents in Michigan, the most important patenting classification in that state. |
| Keywords: | Startup activity; non-compete agreements; regional economic growth |
| JEL: | O30 O38 R11 |
| Date: | 2017–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:17-30&r=tid |
| By: | Dauth, Wolfgang; Findeisen, Sebastian; Südekum, Jens; Woessner, Nicole |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of rising robot exposure on the careers of individual manufacturing workers, and the equilibrium impact across industries and local labor markets in Germany. We find no evidence that robots cause total job losses, but they do affect the composition of aggregate employment. Every robot destroys two manufacturing jobs. This accounts for almost 23% of the overall decline of manufacturing employment in Germany over the period 1994 - 2014, roughly 275,000 jobs. But this loss was fully offset by additional jobs in the service sector. Moreover, robots have not raised the displacement risk for incumbent manufacturing workers. Quite in contrast, more robot exposed workers are even more likely to remain employed in their original workplace, though not necessarily performing the same tasks, and the aggregate manufacturing decline is solely driven by fewer new jobs for young labor market entrants. This enhanced job stability for insiders comes at the cost of lower wages. The negative impact of robots on individual earnings arises mainly for medium-skilled workers in machine-operating occupations, while high-skilled managers gain. In the aggregate, robots raise labor productivity but not wages. Thereby they contribute to the decline of the labor income share. |
| Keywords: | Germany; labor market effects; robots; skill-biased technological change |
| JEL: | F16 J24 O33 R11 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12306&r=tid |
| By: | John V. Winters (Oklahoma State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of college graduates educated in STEM fields on patenting intensity in U.S. metropolitan areas. Some prior research suggests a positive effect on urban innovation from foreign-born STEM workers, but little is known about the effects of native STEM graduates on innovation. My preferred results use time-differenced 2SLS regressions, and I introduce a novel approach to instrumenting for the growth in native STEM graduates. I find positive effects of foreign STEM on innovation, roughly consistent with previous literature. However, my preferred approach yields a negative coefficient estimate for native STEM graduates on innovation that is not statistically significant but suggests that a meaningfully large positive effect is unlikely during the 2009-2015 time-period. I discuss possible explanations and implications. |
| Keywords: | STEM; innovation; patents; human capital; higher education |
| JEL: | I25 J24 J61 O31 R12 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:okl:wpaper:1714&r=tid |
| By: | Tom Broekel; Lars Mewes |
| Abstract: | Existing studies on regional diversification highlight the importance of local path dependencies and related competences. However, little attention has been paid to other factors potentially contributing to diversification processes. Foremost, this concerns the role of R&D policy. This study investigates the relation between R&D policy and regional technological diversification in German labor market regions from 1996 to 2010. We find no evidence for proactive R&D policies, as subsidized R&D projects do not promote regional technological diversification. In contrast, R&D subsidies? allocation is rather risk-averse with subsidies being more likely allocated to already established technologies and those related to region?s technology portfolio. |
| Keywords: | regional diversification, innovation, policy, R&D subsidies, relatedness |
| JEL: | R11 O31 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1726&r=tid |
| By: | Qu FENG (Department of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, 14 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637332.); Zhifeng WANG (Department of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, 14 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637332.); Guiying Laura WU (Department of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, 14 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637332.) |
| Abstract: | China has experienced high-speed catch-up growth with an average annual rate of over 8% in per capita GDP in the past four decades. Using growth accounting, Zhu (2012) nds that the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) accounts for 77% of Chinas per capita GDP growth during 1978-2007, and argues that Chinas TFP growth is mainly driven by resource reallocation due to market liberalization and institutional reforms. This paper aims to estimate Chinas aggregate productivity growth by applying three leading methods of estimating rm-level production function on Chinese manufacturing rms during 1998-2007, and quantify the contribution of resource reallocation to productivity growth. In addition, we also empirically compare the three estimation methods in this large data set. |
| Keywords: | Chinas economic growth, TFP growth, production function, resource reallocation |
| JEL: | D24 O14 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nan:wpaper:1706&r=tid |
| By: | Barajas, Ascensión; Huergo, Elena; Moreno, Lourdes |
| Abstract: | The objective of the present study is to compare the effect of public support of business R&D on technological inputs and outputs before and during the recent economic crisis. To do so, we use information provided by the Centre for the Development for Industrial Technology (CDTI), which is the main public agency in Spain that grants financial aid of its own to companies for the execution of R&D projects. Specifically, we consider firms supported through CDTI programmes for periods the 2002-2005 and 2010-2012. Impact assessment is conducted using "matching" techniques. Our preliminary results suggest that, during the crisis, public support continued to have positive effects on the resources devoted to R&D activities, and also increased the technological outputs obtained from these resources. |
| Keywords: | Impact assessment, Economic crisis, Public aid, Business R&D |
| JEL: | H81 L2 O3 |
| Date: | 2017–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:81529&r=tid |
| By: | Almeida, Rita K. (World Bank); Fernandes, Ana Margarida (World Bank); Viollaz, Mariana (CEDLAS-UNLP) |
| Abstract: | A major concern with the rapid spread of technology is that it replaces some jobs, displacing workers. However, technology may raise firm productivity, generating more jobs. The paper contributes to this debate by exploiting a novel panel data set for Chilean firms in all sectors between 2007 and 2013. While previous studies examine the impacts of automation on the use of routine tasks by middle-educated workers, this study focuses on a measure of complex software that is typically used by more educated workers in cognitive and nonroutine tasks for client, production, and business management. The instrumental variables estimates show that in the medium run, firms' adoption of complex software affects firms' employment decisions and the skill content of occupations. The adoption of complex software reallocates employment from skilled workers to administrative and unskilled production workers. This reallocation leads to an increase in the use of routine and manual tasks and a reduction in the use of abstract tasks within firms. Interestingly, the impacts tend to be concentrated in sectors with a less educated workforce, suggesting that technology can constrain job creation for the more skilled workers there. The paper concludes that the type of technology matters for understanding the impacts of technology adoption on the labor market. |
| Keywords: | complex software, tasks, skills, employment structure, Chile |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J31 O33 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11016&r=tid |
| By: | Orhun Sevinc (Central Bank of Turkey; Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM); London School of Economics (LSE)) |
| Abstract: | I document that employment share change and wage growth of occupations tend to increase monotonically with various measures of skill intensity since 1980 in the US, in contrast to the existing interpretation of labor market polarization along occupational wages. The observation is not particularly driven by a specific decade, gender, age group, or occupation classification. The evidence suggests that polarization by wages does not imply polarization of skills that have cross-occupation comparability. Skill-biased and polarizing occupation demand coexist as a result of the weak connection of wage and observable skill structure particularly among the low-wage jobs in the 1980. The empirical findings of the paper can be reconciled in an extended version of the canonical skill-biased technical change model which incorporates many occupations and within-occupation heterogeneity of skill types. |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:1728&r=tid |
| By: | Andrea Ascani Author-X-Name-First: Andrea; Simona Iammarino |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a joint analysis of two phenomena characterizing most advanced economies in recent decades: the rise of foreign ownership in manufacturing activities and the pervasiveness of the service economy. The aim of the study is to examine the structural transformation of regional economic systems within the UK by focusing on the role played by foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) in manufacturing in facilitating the development of services. From a conceptual perspective, this research relies on different strands of literature on the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on recipient economies, on outsourcing and regional structural transformation, and on the identification of local multipliers. The empirical analysis focuses on a specific demand-side channel for structural change: the forward linkage established by foreign manufacturing MNEs with local service providers through outsourcing. Descriptive evidence shows that service outsourcing by foreign plants operating in manufacturing is pervasive compared to outsourcing by their domestic counterparts. On this basic premise, we estimate the multiplicative effects that foreign manufacturing activity has on the creation of service jobs in local labour markets. In order to produce reliable estimates of a local multiplier, the methodology adopts an instrumental variable approach. Our findings suggest that foreign presence in manufacturing can be a catalyst of regional structural change by stimulating the generation of new jobs in the tertiary sector via demand linkages. Length: |
| Keywords: | multinational enterprises, service outsourcing, regional structural change, local labour markets, multiplier |
| JEL: | R1 O3 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1724&r=tid |