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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | David Popp |
| Abstract: | Encouraging innovation is an important part of environmental policy. A large literature in environmental economics examines the links between environmental policy and innovation. This paper reviews recent literature on green innovation. I highlight major trends in the literature, including an increased number of cross-country studies and a focus on the effect of different policy instruments on innovation. I include a discussion of the justifications and evidence for technology-specific policy incentives and present evidence on the effectiveness of government R&D spending. My review concludes with a discussion of three promising areas for new research on environmental innovation. |
| Keywords: | green innovation, induced innovation, pollution, climate change, renewable energy, energy efficiency, research and development, technology policy |
| JEL: | O31 O38 Q55 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7544&r=all |
| By: | Giovanni Morleo (University of Ferrara; SEEDS, Italy); Marianna Gilli (University of Ferrara; SEEDS, Italy); Massimiliano Mazzanti (University of Ferrara; SEEDS, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This study focuses on the environmental performances of the European manufacturing industry. Our aim is to test the existence of both absolute and conditional ß-convergence as well as s-convergence in the environmental productivity (i.e., for each sector, the ratio between value added and carbon dioxide emissions) of 14 sectors for the period 1995-2009 using data from the WIOD database. The results support the hypothesis of ß-convergence and highlight other factors such as trade openness. In addition, the results indicate that the sectorial share of value added can affect sectorial environmental performances, as shown by a higher speed of convergence. No statistical evidence of s-convergence is found. |
| Keywords: | environmental performances; manufacturing industry; ß-convergence; s-convergence; sector performances |
| JEL: | L52 Q53 Q55 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:srt:wpaper:0519&r=all |
| By: | Marco Grazzi (DISCE, Università Cattolica); Chiara Piccardo (Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Università di Verona); Cecilia Vergari (Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Università di Bologna) |
| Abstract: | This work investigates the relationship between proxies of innovation activities, such as patents and trademarks, and firm performance in terms of revenues and growth. By resorting to the virtual universe of Italian manufacturing firms we provide a rather complete picture of the innovation activities of Italian firms, in terms of patents and trademarks, and we study whether the two instruments for protecting Intellectual Property (IP) exhibit complementarity or substitutability. In addition, and to our knowledge novel, we propose a measure of concordance (or proximity) between the patents and trademarks owned by the same firm and we then investigate whether such concordance appears to exert any effect on performance. |
| Keywords: | Trademarks, Patents, Innovation, Intellectual Property, Complementarity, Concordance, Technological proximity, Firm performance, Firm growth |
| JEL: | O31 O34 L25 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie5:dipe0003&r=all |
| By: | Ray Lambert (Birbeck); Paul Temple (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the link between standards, business strategy and innovation, based upon a factor analysis of the stated ‘context’ for innovation contained in the 2012-2014 UK Innovation Survey (UKIS). The analysis reveals a distinction between pro-active ‘entrepreneurial’ strategies and reactive and ‘defensive’ strategies, as well as firms, although regarded in the survey as innovation ‘active’ have no clear innovation based objective. We combine this classification with sectoral indicators of the significance of standards to investigate how firms deliver these strategies. We find that, in addition to the important role played by the type of innovation strategy, standards have a significant impact not only on the extensive margin of R&D expenditures, but also on the likelihood that firms will invest in related complementary investments, notably in training and design. We test these propositions with a specific UKIS question on the value that firms put on standards. The positive impact that standards have on the acquisition of innovation related assets suggest that, on balance, the impact of standards has significant pro-competitive effects on an innovation system. |
| JEL: | L21 O31 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sur:surrec:0519&r=all |
| By: | Polemis, Michael; Tselekounius, Markos |
| Abstract: | The channel between innovation and industry regulation constitutes a non-lasting debate among the economists and researchers within the recent years. Despite the significant contributions on this field, mostly made from the empirical standpoint, the existing literature is still incomplete. This might be attributed to the fact that existing studies fail to combine a strong theoretical framework with the empirical scrutiny in order to exemplify and decompose the relationship between regulation intensity and innovation activity. We attempt to shed light on this limitation by theoretically modeling the telecommunications sector, in which access regulation impacts the non-separable activity in process and product innovation. We then empirically test our model by deploying an efficient panel threshold technique along the lines of Hansen (1999). Our balanced panel dataset comprises of 32 OECD countries over the period 1995-2012. The empirical results unveil a non-monotonic relationship of an “inverted V-shaped” form between regulation and innovation. We argue that beyond certain thresholds increasing the regulatory stringency further results in decreasing sector innovation. Our findings survive robustness checks after the inclusion of two alternative threshold variables (market structure and entry regulation) incurring significant implications for the policy makers and government officials. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Regulation; Telecommunications, Market structure; Panel threshold model. |
| JEL: | C24 D43 L51 L80 L96 |
| Date: | 2019–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:92770&r=all |
| By: | Santacreu, Ana Maria (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis); Varela, Liliana (University of Warwick, CEPR and CAGE) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of increased import penetration on a country’s long-term patterns of trade. It shows that foreign competition induces firms to increase their R&D efforts in order to differentiate their products and escape competition. Quality improvements translate into increases in firms’ exports. This effect, however, is heterogeneous across sectors and is driven by sectors’ in which the country has a comparative advantage. On the aggregate, the impact of import competition on innovation and a country’s patterns of trade depends crucially on the distribution of sectoral comparative advantage. We provide evidence of this mechanism using firm-level data on trade and innovation for France and import competition driven by China’s WTO entry. |
| Keywords: | quality upgrading, import competition, patterns of trade, comparative advantage JEL Classification: F12, F14, O30, O41 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:404&r=all |
| By: | J. David Brown; John S. Earle; Mee Jung Kim; Kyung Min Lee |
| Abstract: | We estimate differences in innovation behavior between foreign versus U.S.-born entrepreneurs in high-tech industries. Our data come from the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, a random sample of firms with detailed information on owner characteristics and innovation activities. We find uniformly higher rates of innovation in immigrant-owned firms for 15 of 16 different innovation measures; the only exception is for copyright/trademark. The immigrant advantage holds for older firms as well as for recent start-ups and for every level of the entrepreneur’s education. The size of the estimated immigrant-native differences in product and process innovation activities rises with detailed controls for demographic and human capital characteristics but falls for R&D and patenting. Controlling for finance, motivations, and industry reduces all coefficients, but for most measures and specifications immigrants are estimated to have a sizable advantage in innovation. |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:19-06&r=all |
| By: | Elstner, Steffen; Rujin, Svetlana |
| Abstract: | Since at least the mid-2000's, many advanced economies have experienced low productivity growth. This development is often related to the declining productivity gains at the technology frontier, which is commonly assumed to be determined by the U.S. We challenge this explanation by studying the effects of changes in U.S. technology on the productivity level in other advanced economies. Overall, we find positive but small spillover effects of U.S. technology shocks. The elasticity of foreign labor productivity with respect to a one percent increase in the U.S. technology level is significantly lower than one for many countries. The recent U.S. productivity slowdown, therefore, had a limited effect on productivity developments in advanced economies. Furthermore, our results suggest that institutional factors are not able to explain cross-country differences in the size of the spillover effects. If any, regulation of the service sector seems to play a role. |
| Keywords: | labor productivity,international spillover effects,technology shocks,structural VARs |
| JEL: | O40 E24 C32 F00 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:796&r=all |