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on Technology and Industrial Dynamics |
| By: | Milene Simone Tessarin; Carlos Roberto Azzoni; ; |
| Abstract: | This study explores the importance of labour pool and geographical concentration as essential factors that help shape pathways for innovation and influence the speed with which technological change can occur. To do so, we propose an approach based on human capital and the workers’ skills that contribute to innovation. Being able to capture this broader range of professionals is crucial to assess regional innovation in Less Developed Countries, such as Brazil and other Latin American countries, as their productive structure concentrates on lower technological industries and innovative activities not centred on R&D. We created a measure of innovative potential that can be used at different levels of regional disaggregation. We analyze 374 relevant Brazilian Labour Market Areas (LMA), employing data on occupations from the Annual Report of Social Information, from 2003 to 2018. Although innovative activities are heavily concentrated in a few regions, empirical evidence suggests that a shift has occurred since the early 2000s, with lagging regions making progress faster. Nonetheless, our results show that such convergence is still slight, given the distance between the leading and lagging regions’ innovative performance. Factors related to the region’s previous capacities, such as the stock of workers with innovative skills, manufacturing industry share, and the number of large firms have a positive association with innovative activity in a region. Although the convergence in the innovative potential among Brazilian regions, the movement is too slow to indicate a transformation of the country as a whole to levels similar to those of developed nations. |
| Keywords: | regional innovation, regional inequality, skills of workers, structural change |
| JEL: | O30 O33 R11 J24 L16 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2227&r=tid |
| By: | Zhaoyingzi Dong; Siqi Sun; Pierre-Alexandre Balland; Weiwen Zhang |
| Abstract: | Accelerating the development of green technologies is essential to achieve a green transition, but green technologies tend to be more radical and complex. It means that they require significant efforts to scale and we need to understand all possible levers of green technological change. In this paper, we investigate whether environmental regulation can provide opportunities for path-breakthrough and complex technology diversification during the green transition process. The analysis is based on patenting activities in Chinese cities from 2003 to 2016. Our results show that cities with tighter environmental regulations are more likely to branch into new green technology spaces. In addition, environmental regulations help cities enter less related and more complex green domains. This study provides significant policy implications for the green transition literature. |
| Keywords: | Environmental regulation; Technology diversification; Green innovation; Relatedness; Complexity |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2226&r=tid |
| By: | Georgios Tsiachtsiras (University of Bristol and University of Bath, United Kingdom.); Deyun Yin (School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.); Ernest Miguelez (Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, BSE, UMR 6060, Avenue Léon Duguit, 33608 Pessac, France and AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona, Spain.); Rosina Moreno (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the e?ect of the High Speed Rail (HSR) network expansion on local innovation in China during the period 2008-2016. Using exogenous variation arising from a novel instrument - courier’s stations during the Ming dynasty, we ?nd solid evidence that the opening of a HSR station increases cities’ innovation activity. We also explore the role of inter-city technology di?usion as being behind the surge of local innovation. To do it, we compute least-cost paths between city-pairs, over time, based on the opening and speed of each HSR line, and obtain that an increase in a city’s connectivity to other cities specialized in a speci?c technological ?eld, through the HSR network, increases the probability for the city to specialize in that same technological ?eld. We interpret it as evidence of knowledge di?usion. |
| Keywords: | High speed rail, Innovation, Technology Di?usion, Patents, Specialization. JEL classification: R40, O18, O30, O33. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:202220&r=tid |
| By: | Consoli, Davide; Marin, Giovanni; Rentocchini, Francesco; Vona, Francesco |
| Abstract: | The present study adds to the literature on routinization and employment by capturing within occupation task changes over the period 1980-2010. The main contributions are the measurement of such changes and the combination of two data sources on occupational task content for the United States: the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and the Occupational Information Network. We show that within-occupation reorientation away from routine tasks: i) accounts for 1/3 of the decline in routine-task use; ii) accelerates in the 1990s, decelerates in the 2000s but with significant convergence across occupations; iii) allows workers to escape the employment and wage decline, conditional on the initial level of routine-task intensity. The latter finding suggests that task reorientation is a key channel through which labour markets adapt to various forms of labour-saving technological change. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2022–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemwp:329341&r=tid |
| By: | Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Daniela Bellani (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence); Honorata Bogusz (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | In this study we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. Adoption of industrial robots in the EU has tripled since the mid-1990s, tremendously changing the conditions of participating in the labour market. On the one hand, new jobs are created, benefitting largely the highly skilled workers. On the other hand, the growing turnover in the labour market and changing content of jobs induce fears of job displacement and make workers continuously adjust to new requirements (reskill, upskill, increase work efforts). The consequences of these changes are particularly strong for the employment and earning prospects of the low and middle educated workers. Our focus is on six European countries: Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. We link regional data on fertility and employment structures by industry from Eurostat (NUTS-2) with data on robot adoption from the International Federation of Robotics. We estimate fixed effects linear models with instrumental variables in order to account for the external shocks which may affect fertility and robot adoption in parallel. Our findings suggest robots tend to exert a negative impact on fertility in highly industrialised regions, regions with relatively low educated populations and those which are technologically less advanced. At the same time, better educated and prospering regions may even experience fertility improvements as a result of the technological change. The family and labour market institutions of the country may further moderate these effects. |
| Keywords: | fertility, employment, industrial robots, technological change, Europe |
| JEL: | J11 J13 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2022-26&r=tid |
| By: | Mehmet Furkan Karaca, Mehmet Furkan Karaca (Michigan State University); Minetti, Raoul (Michigan State University, Department of Economics); Murro, Pierluigi (Luiss University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the dynamic process of credit reallocation and its interaction with aggregate innovative activity. To draw out theoretical predictions, we build a discrete time model to investigate the consequences of lenders’ decision on reallocating credit and borrowers’ choice on innovating. We show that an escalation in credit reallocation disrupts innovative activities. Using a novel dataset on bank balance sheets and the aggregate number of patents for Italy, we examine the effect of credit reallocation on innovation. We construct measures of credit reallocation and collect data on the aggregate number of patents as a measure of innovative activity across Italian provinces. We find that an increase in credit reallocation reduces innovative activity while aggregate credit growth helps to expand it. |
| Keywords: | Credit Market; Credit Reallocation; Technological Change; Innovation |
| JEL: | E44 G21 O30 |
| Date: | 2022–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:msuecw:2022_006&r=tid |
| By: | Nicolo Barbieri; Davide Consoli; Giovanni Marin; Francois Perruchas |
| Abstract: | Climate change is a global phenomenon with markedly local manifestations. Accordingly, territories differ in terms of exposure to climate events, of capacity to adopt climate mitigation policies and of the welfare effects that these deep transformations entail. The paper brings together these threads with an empirical study of the relationship between green technology development and income inequality in US Metropolitan Areas over the period 2005-2015. We find a positive association between local patenting capacity and growing income gaps to the detriment of the least affluent. Further, higher patenting propensity in early stage technologies has a stronger association with income inequality, whereas such a relationship dissipates at later stages of the life cycle. |
| Keywords: | environmental technologies, technology lifecycle, inequality |
| JEL: | O33 R11 D63 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2225&r=tid |
| By: | Cetrulo, Armanda; Cirillo, Valeria; Landini, Fabio |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of firm-level collective bargaining on firms' investment in intangible assets and, specifically R&D. While standard hold-up theories predict a negative effect of organized labour on intangible investments, the inclusion of pay-for-performance schemes in complementary negotiation can actually invert the prediction. Moreover, the industrial relation literature suggests that, in presence of asymmetric power relations, firm-level collective bargaining can allow workers to make their voice heard and induce management to invest in assets that drive competition away from wages, including R&D. We exploit a rich and representative survey on Italian non-agricultural companies conducted by the National Institute for the Analysis of Public Policies (INAPP) to test these predictions. Baseline estimates suggest that the presence of second-level collective bargaining is associated with higher investments in R&D and that power relation is the main mechanism driving this result. These findings are confirmed also in a robustness check where we exploit size contingent legislation governing the creation of employee representative bodies involved in firm-level bargaining in a regression discontinuity design (RDD) framework. The implications for the design of innovation policy are discussed. |
| Keywords: | R&D,Intangibles,Unions,Collective Bargaining,Complementary Negotiation |
| JEL: | J50 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1195&r=tid |
| By: | Masami Imai (Department of Economics, Wesleyan University); Michiru Sawada (Department of Economics, Nihon University) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether a financial crisis impairs corporate innovation in the context of the 1997- 1998 crisis in Japan which features a sharp decline in bank credit, the collapse of multiple major banks, and the economy’s failure to revert back the pre-crisis growth trend. In order to explore causal mechanisms, we link together three separate pieces of firm-level longitudinal data sets: (1) patent counts from 1994-2003 as well as the number of future patent citations up until 2018 to measure the quantity and quality of innovation output, (2) dependence on intermediated funds, (3) financing relationships with the failed banks. We show that innovative outputs of firms that rely more heavily on bank finance fell more, and that bank dependence matters more for small firms. In addition, as compared to otherwise similar firms, a group of small firms which had long-term relationships with the failed banks exhibited a large, persistent decline in innovative outputs. Taken together, the results are consistent with the view that crisis-induced disruptions in the provision of intermediated funds have long-term effects on innovative capacity of the opaque, bank dependent firms. |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wes:weswpa:2022-002&r=tid |
| By: | Duc Nguyen |
| Abstract: | I establish new facts and explanations on the heterogeneous paths of structural transformation across countries. First, many countries exhibit flat-manufacturing profiles without noticeable signs of deindustrialization, which differ from the conventional steep-manufacturing hump-shaped profiles in advanced economies. Second, substantial heterogeneity exists in the labor allocation within services sector as flat-manufacturing countries tend to allocate substantially more labor into low-skilled services compared to steep-manufacturing countries. Third, heterogeneous structural transformation paths are prevalent among both earlier and later developers and not subject to the timing of development. Using a standard model of structural transformation, I find that observed differences in sectoral productivity growth are not quantitatively sufficient to generate the heterogeneous paths of structural transformation across countries. Instead, differences in relative productivity levels between manufacturing and low-skilled services account for the majority of the heterogeneity, suggesting that country-specific factors are key. I show that the observed heterogeneous paths of structural transformation contribute substantially to economic growth outcomes across countries. |
| Keywords: | employment, agriculture, manufacturing, low-skilled services, high-skilled services, productivity, structural transformation, industrialization, premature deindustrialization |
| JEL: | E1 E24 O11 O13 O14 O41 O50 |
| Date: | 2022–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-742&r=tid |
| By: | Link, Albert (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); Swann, Christopher (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); van Hasselt, Martijn (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In 2000 and again in 2012, the U.S. Congress charged the National Research Council (NRC) within the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study how the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has stimulated technological innovation and used small businesses to meet Federal research and development needs, and to make recommendations for improvements in the SBIR program. Using project data collected by the NRC, we assert that an important assessment metric not previously considered by the NRC in its reports to Congress relates to the failure rate of funded Phase II research projects. Our paper identifies a number of covariates associated with project failure, and we make a recommendation that program managers might decrease the likelihood of project failure if funded firms can be given relevant information about how to contact angel investors, venture capitalists, and private investors, and how to present to them a proposal to obtain additional research investment dollars. |
| Keywords: | Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR); project failure; R&D; program assessment; |
| JEL: | O22 O31 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2022–08–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2022_007&r=tid |
| By: | Victo José da Silva Neto (Radboud University); Tulio Chiarini (IPEA); Leonardo Costa Ribeiro (Cedeplar/UFMG); Igor Santos Tupy (UFV) |
| Abstract: | Digital platforms have positioned themselves at the center of global flows of capital, knowledge, and work. Their ability to influence and organize these flows makes it imperative to understand the locational decisions of platform companies. This paper explores new evidence on the digital platform economy geography. Our objective is threefold. First, we propose a novel methodology using data science and artificial intelligence tools to identify platform companies. Second, with a set of over three thousand companies, we introduce worldwide maps where it is possible to see the countries and cities that host platform companies. Third, we present platform companies’ locational choice using econometric models.While we observe a geographic concentration of platform companies in the U.S. and China, we also see that digital platform companies are spreading to all geographical directions, including tax havens, reinforcing the hypothesis that "platforming" is a worldwide phenomenon. |
| Keywords: | Platformization; Platform capitalism; Natural language processing; Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial regression model; Orbis |
| JEL: | F01 L86 O33 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td650&r=tid |
| By: | Viktor Stojkoski; Philipp Koch; Cesar A. Hidalgo; |
| Abstract: | To achieve inclusive green growth, countries need to consider a multiplicity of economic, social, and environmental factors. These are often captured by metrics of economic complexity derived from the geography of trade, thus missing key information on innovative activities. To bridge this gap, we combine trade data with data on patent applications and research publications to build models that significantly and robustly improve the ability of economic complexity metrics to explain international variations in inclusive green growth. We show that measures of complexity built on trade and patent data combine to explain future economic growth and income inequality and that countries that score high in all three metrics tend to exhibit lower emission intensities. These findings illustrate how the geography of trade, technology, and research combine to explain inclusive green growth. nations. |
| Keywords: | economic complexity, inclusive green growth, complex systems |
| JEL: | F14 F43 O12 O15 O47 Q56 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2228&r=tid |
| By: | Bertay, Ata Can; Carreño, José; Huizinga, Harry; Uras, Burak; Vellekoop, Nathanael |
| Abstract: | This paper utilizes a comprehensive worker-firm panel for the Netherlands to quantify the impact of ICT capital-skill complementarity on the finance wage premium after the Global Financial Crisis. We apply additive worker and firm fixed-effect models to account for unobserved worker- and firm-heterogeneity and show that firm fixed-effects correct for a downward bias in the estimated finance wage premium. Our results indicate a sizable finance wage premium for both fixed- and full-hourly wages. The complementarity between ICT capital spending and the share of high skill workers at the firm-level reduces the full-wage premium considerably and the fixed-wage premium almost entirely. |
| Keywords: | finance wage premium,worker-firm panels,skill-biased technological change |
| JEL: | G20 J24 J31 O33 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:361&r=tid |