|
on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Giovanni Dosi; Matteo Tranchero |
| Abstract: | In this chapter we discuss the role of country's given conditions and endowment structures according to two theoretical perspectives. While `pure' theories of trade have mainly seen specialization according to one's comparative advantages as the key route to development, we outline a `heretic' point of view on the role of technological learning and absolute advantages for structural transformation. Such a theory will provide useful guidance to interpret the eects of unbridled globalization and the role of natural resources vis-a-vis industrial and trade policies in shaping the process of structural change. |
| Keywords: | structural change ; endowments; technological gaps; catching-up |
| Date: | 2018–10–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2018/33&r=tid |
| By: | Logan Lewis (Federal Reserve Board); Ryan Monarch (Federal Reserve Board); Michael Sposi (Southern Methodist University); Jing Zhang (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | Services, which are less traded than goods, rose from 58 percent of world expenditure in 1970 to 79 percent in 2015. In a trade model featuring nonhomothetic preferences and input-output linkages, we find that such structural change has restrained the growth in world trade to GDP by 16 percentage points over this period. This magnitude is similar to how much declining trade costs have boosted openness. Moreover, structural change dampens the measured gains from trade by incorporating endogenous responses of expenditure shares to the trade regime. Ongoing structural change implies declining openness, even absent rising protectionism. |
| Keywords: | Globalization, Structural Change, International Trade. |
| JEL: | F41 L16 O41 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:1806&r=tid |
| By: | Fulvio Castellacci (TIK Centre, University of Oslo); Davide Consoli (TIK Centre and INGENIO, Valencia); Artur Santoalha (TIK Centre, University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that e-skills, namely capabilities associated with the use and development of digital technologies, enhance regions’ ability to imitate existing knowledge and to create new industrial paths. The empirical analysis focuses on the relationship between e-skills and technological diversification for a panel of European regions for the period 2001-2012. We construct novel indices of regional e-skill endowment distinguishing between basic users, professional users and expert developers of ICTs. The econometric results show that e-skills foster technological diversification dynamics in European regions, and that this effect is particularly strong for less developed regions. |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tik:inowpp:20181009&r=tid |
| By: | Silvia Rocchetta; Andrea Mina |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the effect of different regional technological profiles on the resilience of regional economies to exogenous shocks. It presents an empirical examination of the determinants of resilience through panel analyses of UK NUTS III level data for the 2004-2012 period. The results indicate that regions endowed with technologically coherent -- and not simply diversified-- knowledge bases are better prepared to face an unforeseen downturn and display adaptive resilience. Moreover, local economies tend to be more adaptable if they innovate in sectors with the strongest growth opportunities, even though firms' net entry does not appear to contribute significantly towards resilience. |
| Keywords: | resilience, adaptation, innovation, technological variety, financial crisis |
| Date: | 2018–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2018/30&r=tid |
| By: | Marte C.W. Solheim; Ron Boschma; Sverre Herstad |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate whether the composition of experience-based knowledge accumulated by firms in urban and rural locations is reflected in the novelty content of their innovations. Looking at the manufacturing industry, and using Norwegian Linked Employer- Employee register data (LEED) merged with Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data, we find that unrelated experience variety within firms increases the probability of radical innovation, independently of firms' location, whereas related variety increases the probability of incremental innovation in large-city regions. These results demonstrate that innovation capacity cannot be understood from the single perspective of R&D efforts and strategy as it also depends on experiences accumulated in 'entire organizations' and the locations in which accumulation occurs. Moreover, they suggest that for manufacturing firms, urban locations are not hot spot for radical change. Instead, they support incremental innovative activities by facilitating effective sharing of knowledge between related sectors. |
| Keywords: | immigration, Diversity, Innovation, Related Variety, Unrelated Variety, Urban, Rural |
| JEL: | O31 P25 O15 O14 J24 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1836&r=tid |
| By: | Bachmann, Ronald; Cim, Merve; Green, Colin |
| Abstract: | The past four decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the structure of employment. In particular, the rapid increase in computational power has led to large-scale reductions in employment in jobs that can be described as intensive in routine tasks. These jobs have been shown to be concentrated in middle skill occupations. A large literature on labour market polarisation characterises and measures these processes at an aggregate level. However to date there is little information regarding the individual worker adjustment processes related to routine-biased technological change. Using an administrative panel data set for Germany, we follow workers over an extended period of time and provide evidence of both the short-term adjustment process and medium-run effects of routine task intensive job loss at an individual level. We initially demonstrate a marked, and steady, shift in employment away from routine, middle-skill, occupations. In subsequent analysis, we demonstrate how exposure to jobs with higher routine task content is associated with a reduced likelihood of being in employment in both the short term (after one year) and medium term (five years). This employment penalty to routineness of work has increased over the past four decades. More generally, we demonstrate that routine task work is associated with reduced job stability and more likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment. However, these negative effects of routine work appear to be concentrated in increased employment to employment, and employment to unemployment transitions rather than longer periods of unemployment. |
| Keywords: | polarization,occupational mobility,worker flows,tasks |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J62 E24 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc18:181541&r=tid |
| By: | Andrea Mina; Henry Lahr |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between firms' innovation activities and the hierarchy of financing behaviours. We analyse the role of innovation inputs (R&D), intermediate outputs (patents) and outcomes (product and process innovations) as sources of information asymmetry in financing decisions. Our focus on mainly unlisted companies allows us to study the effects of information asymmetries in the context where they are most severe, that is, among small and medium-sized firms. We identify the effect of innovation, alongside the size of the firm, its age and its human capital, on the order of directly observed external capital allocations. Our results show that innovation is strongly associated with a pecking order characterised by increasing agency costs, and that the more uncertain the innovation signal, the stronger its effect on the pecking order. In further robustness tests, this relationship and associated hierarchy of external financing emerge from the data without imposing an a-priori pecking order. |
| Keywords: | R&D, innovation, information asymmetries, capital structure, pecking order |
| Date: | 2018–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2018/31&r=tid |
| By: | Miroslav Gabrovski (University of Hawaii at Manoa Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Republic of Korea) |
| Abstract: | There is ample evidence that R&D investment is mildly pro-cyclical. Whereas the existing literature can explain the positive correlation between investment in R&D and output, the moderate strength of the relationship remains under-explored. This paper develops a stochastic expanding-variety endogenous growth model that accounts for the observed mild pro-cyclicality of R&D. In the model, several firms may simultaneously make the same innovation. Research projects innovated by many firms simultaneously are of higher quality, on average, and contribute relatively more to the expansion of the knowledge stock in the economy. This delivers an endogenous mechanism that breaks the otherwise perfect correlation between R&D and output. A calibration of our model closely matches the cyclical properties of R&D. |
| Keywords: | Simultaneous Innovation, Research and Development, Medium-Term Cycles, Macroeconomic Fluctuations, Endogenous Cycles |
| JEL: | O30 O40 E32 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:201813&r=tid |
| By: | Langinier, Corinne (University of Alberta, Department of Economics); Ray Chaudhuri, Amrita (University of Winnipeg) |
| Abstract: | We develop a theoretical framework to investigate the impact of patent policies and emission taxes on green innovation that reduces the emission output ratio, and on the emission level. In the absence of green consumers, the introduction of patents results in a paradox whereby increasing emission tax beyond a certain threshold leads to a discrete increase in the emission level, which may be avoided by reducing the patenting cost. In the presence of green consumers, this paradox is restricted to an intermediate range of tax rates, and at sufficiently high tax rates, reducing the patenting cost may increase the emission level. Also, higher emission taxes increase green investment only if the fraction of green consumers is sufficiently small, and the magnitude of this effect decreases as this fraction increases. Moreover, a stricter patentability requirement is only effective at reducing emissions if the fraction of green consumers is sufficiently small. |
| Keywords: | Patent; Clean Technologies; Environmentally Friendly Consumers; Rebound Effect |
| JEL: | L13 O34 Q50 |
| Date: | 2018–10–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:2018_015&r=tid |
| By: | Andrea Morrison; Sergio Petralia; Dario Diodato |
| Abstract: | More than 30 million people migrated to the US between the 1850s and 1920s. In the order of thousands became inventors and patentees. Drawing on an original dataset of immigrant inventors to the US, we assess the city-level impact of immigrants patenting and their potential crowding out effects on US native inventors. Our study contributes to the different strands of literature in economics, innovation studies and economic geography on the role of immigrants as carriers of knowledge. Our results show that immigrants? patenting is positively associated with total patenting. We find also that immigrant inventors crowd-in US inventors. The growth in US inventors? productivity can be explained also in terms of knowledge spill-overs generate by immigrants. Our findings are robust to several checks and to the implementation of an instrumental variable strategy. |
| Keywords: | immigration, innovation, knowledge spill-over, patent, age of mass migration, US |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O31 R3 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1835&r=tid |