Engines of growth. Innovation and productivity in industry groups

The diversity of technological activities that contribute to growth in labour productivity is examined in this article for manufacturing and services industries in eight major EU countries. We test the relevance of two “engines of growth”, i.e., the strategies of technological competitiveness (based on innovation in products and markets) and cost competitiveness (relying on innovation in processes and machinery) and their impact on economic performance. We propose models for the determinants of changes in labour productivity and we carry out empirical tests for both the whole economy and for the four Revised Pavitt classes that group manufacturing and services industries with distinct patterns of innovation. Tests are carried out by pooling industries, countries and three time periods, using innovation survey data from CIS 2, 3 and 4, linked to economic variables. The results confirm the specificity of the two “engines of growth”; economic performances in European industries appear as the result of different innovation models, with strong specificities of the four Revised Pavitt classes.     

Environmentally oriented innovative strategies and firm performance in services. Micro‐evidence from Italy

This paper aims at analysing the impact of environmentally oriented innovative strategies on firms’ economic performance in terms of employment, turnover and labour productivity growth. We exploit a unique dataset of 773 Italian service firms with 20 or more employees, based on 1993–1995 Community Innovation Survey (CIS) II data on innovation strategies and 1995–1998 System of the Enterprise Account (SEA). Using a Gibrat‐like empirical model, our findings show a negative link between environmental motivations and growth in employment and turnover in the short term, which then associates to a not significant or even negative effect on labour productivity growth, a result which is explainable by various factors: non‐mature markets; early movers that need more time to grasp the benefits of innovative actions; weaknesses of some service branches. The effect on employment is in part compatible with the existing evidence and may be based on efficiency improvements (dematerialisation processes), which also impact on efficiency by reducing workforce numbers. The effect on turnover of environmental innovation strategy is negative, implying either a short‐medium effect, possibly balanced in the long run by net benefits in terms of higher added value, or a real negative impact, which may be contingent on the period of observation, when environmental strategies where not at the heart of strategic management policies. Neither Porter‐like effects nor virtuous circles among environmentally strategies and performance seem to be present, at least in the short run and for services firms, calling for the necessity of further analyses on medium‐ long‐term effects and performances of specific service branches. Though effects on performances could turn out positive in the long run when mature green markets and investments provide their benefits, our evidence highlights that services could still find hard times in tackling the well‐known low productivity ‘disease’ even in the environmental realm.     

Services as drivers of economic growth. Is there an opportunity for Latin America countries?

ABSTRACT

Considering the recent improvements in services innovation and productivity performance, the aim of the article is to analyze if they can act as a new growth driver for Latin American countries. For that, we review the literature on services and structural change in two stages. First, we apply a bibliometric methodology to identify the main trends in literature. Second, we analyze in-depth a smaller set of papers in order to extract the main lessons regarding three aspects of our question: (i) services and productivity growth, (ii) new opportunities for innovation in services and (iii) relation between services and manufacturing through servitization process. The results show that productivity and innovation growth in services are concentrated in only a few branches. Besides this, services performance depends on their links with manufacturing activities. We conclude that the current Latin American servitization process clausure opportunities for developing instead of opening them.     

Sectoral Patterns Of Technological Change In Services

This article provides a comprehensive picture of the characteristics of innovation in services, using the results of the 1993–95 Italian innovation survey in services. Technological change does play a role in services: around one third of service firms have introduced a technological innovation in the period 1993–95. Process innovation, innovative investment and the acquisition and internal development of software represent the most important channels through which service firms innovate. R&D activities represent an important innovation source only for a small number of science and technology-based service industries. The sectoral analysis highlights the variety of innovative patterns, which should discourage any simple generalization about innovation in services. Accordingly, a sectoral taxonomy is proposed in which service industries are clustered according to the overall innovative performance of firms, the nature of the innovation activities carried out, the different knowledge bases underlying the innovation processes, and the different patterns of interaction through which service firms innovate.     

Innovation in the Service Sector Results from the Italian Statistical Survey

This acticle provides fresh empirical evidence on the relevance and nature of innovation activities in the service sector. The evidence can be summarized as follows: Technological innovation is quite a diffused phenomenon in market services: more than one-third of surveyed firms have introduced technological innovations during the period 1993–95. The amount of financial resources devoted to innovation varies widely across service sectors. Financial, computing and software, engineering, and telecommunication services are the most innovative service sectors. Most service firms can distinguish between innovations in services and in processes. Process innovation emerges as the most diffused typology. Service firms rely on a wide range of innovation sources. The acquisition and development of software and investment in machinery are the most cited. Investment, R&D, and software are the major components of firms’ innovation expenditure. Major obstacles for introducing technological innovation are of an economic nature, that is, cost and risk too high. The two most important objectives of firms’ innovation strategies consist of improving service quality and reducing cost. Technological information is drawn mainly from in-house production departments as well as from outside suppliers of equipment, materials, and components. Public and private research institutions as well as patents and licenses play a very marginal role. Finally, in the near future the importance of technology for firms’ performance is expected to increase in service industries.     

Environmental efficiency and labour productivity: Trade-off or joint dynamics? A theoretical investigation and empirical evidence from Italy using NAMEA

In this paper we test an adapted EKC hypothesis to verify the relationship between ‘environmental efficiency’ (namely emissions per unit of value added) and labour productivity (value added per employee). We exploit NAMEA data on Italy for 29 sector branches and 6 categories of air emissions for the period 1991-2001. We employ data on capital stock and trade openness to test the robustness of our results.On the basis of the theoretical and empirical analyses focusing on innovation, firm performances and environmental externalities, we would expect a positive correlation between environmental efficiency and labour productivity — a negative correlation between the emissions intensity of value added and labour productivity — which departs from the conventional mainstream view. The hypothesis tested is a critical one within the longstanding debate on the potential trade-off or complementarity between environmental preservation and economic performance, which is strictly associated with the role of technological innovation. We find that for most air emission categories there is a positive relationship between labour productivity and environmental efficiency. Labour productivity dynamics, then, seem to be complementary to a decreasing emissions intensity in the production process. Taking a disaggregate sector perspective, we show that the macro-aggregate evidence is driven by sector dynamics in a non-homogenous way across pollutants. Services tend always to show a ‘complementary’ relationship, while industry seems to be associated with inverted U-shape dynamics for greenhouse gases and nitrogen oxides. This is in line with our expectations. In any case, EKC shapes appear to drive such productivity links towards complementarity. The extent to which this evidence derives from endogenous market forces, industrial and structural change, and policy effects is discussed by taking an evolutionary perspective to innovation and by referring to impure public goods arguments.     

Towards a Disequilibrium Theory of Endogenous Economic Growth

This paper discusses the need for a new approach to economic growth theory. The standard theory of growth-in-equilibrium driven by exogenous, uncaused, productivity gains has an implication that is both unjustified and perverse from a policy perspective: that government intervention of any kind can only introduce constraints and reduce option space, thus decreasing potential growth. It is argued that growth theory should (1) acknowledge the importance of natural resources, especially fossil fuels, as a driver of past and present economic growth, (2) incorporate an explicit recognition that growth is a consequence of technological innovation, especially radical innovation, that often responds to natural resource scarcities or other societal needs and (3) explicitly reflect the fact that the important (i.e. scarce) factors of production in economics can and do change over time, i.e. from a rural ‘cowboy’ economy of the past to an urbanized ‘spaceship’ economy of the future. In short, it should reflect the fact that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. The first and third of these modifications have been proposed before, but not in combination. The third seems to be new.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Effects on Firms’ Economic Performance of Implementing Environmental Management Systems

This paper investigates whether environmental management system (EMS) implementation influences a firm’s value added, one of the indices of economic performance. Because it is expected that EMS implementation increases a firm’s value added through an increase in demand and an improvement in productivity, a simple model to identify how these effects influence a firm’s value added is developed and is empirically investigated using panel data for Japanese manufacturing firms in the period 1996–2007. The main findings are as follows. For the full sample, EMS implementation increases a firm’s value added through an increase in demand and improvement in productivity. Among these firms, however, the positive effect of the implementation through an increase in demand mainly exists for export-oriented firms. At the industry level, the effects of EMS implementation vary among different industries. These results empirically prove that there are plural paths for EMS implementation to improve a firm’s economic performance.     

Direct effect of ownership and technology import: Firm level evidence from large and medium-enterprises in Shanghai

This paper explores the direct effect of ownership and technology imports under the framework of neoclassical economic theory. The econometric analysis is based on panel data from a random sample of large and medium-enterprises in Shanghai, during the period of 1998 to 2003. The results show that Sino-foreign joint ventures, Sino-foreign cooperative enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises (SANZI) enjoy higher labor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) than domestic enterprises. Intra-firm diffusion of non-codified technology, proxied by ownership, is the main source of their better performance, whereas internally transferred codified technology makes little contribution to TFP. For state-owned enterprises, codified technology imports have significantly raised both labor productivity and TFP, but such positive effect is significantly dependent on the S&T human resource. In contrast, no evidence supports that introduction of foreign technology has enhanced the productivity in domestic nonstate-owned enterprises. The empirical results indicate that SANZI do not have a distinct advantage in their codified technology. In addition, inadequate investment in assimilation process and research and development together with inefficient management of science and technology activities, may impede the use of imported technology. __________ Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2006, (3): 90–102     

A note on the evolution of inequality in Poland, 1992-99

Analyses of household budget surveys, national accounts dataon functional income distribution, and data on the dispersionof wages, indicate that income inequality in Poland, after fallingover the 1993–96 period, rose significantly from 1997onwards. Farmers and the unemployed were the main losers. Theoverall position of wage-earners improved, although wage inequalityincreased sharply in the second half of the 1990s. Employersand the self-employed fared quite well. This coincided withfiscal policy changes which substantially slowed down progressionin income taxes. Over the 1993–96 period growth was highand balanced. Subsequently, growth slowed down, giving riseto serious fiscal and external deficits.     

The impact of defense expenditure on economic productivity in OECD countries

Evaluating the effects of defense spending on macroeconomic performance and, in particular, on economic productivity is a critical issue. This study integrates Malmquist productivity index (MPI) with bootstrapping to establish statistical inferences that provide a complete, effective analysis of the impact of defense expenditure on economic productivity between 1993 and 2009 for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries. The findings indicate that the average MPI with defense expenditure is higher than that without defense expenditure. Additionally, region based productivity analysis indicates that the appropriate allocation of defense expenditure can increase regional economic productivity effectively across Asia, Oceania and Europe. Moreover, the results further prove that the effective defense expenditure strategies undertaken by government are important for improving economic productivity of countries. The integrated methodology approach applied in this study can be used for further similar studies.     

Is more competition conducive to the macroeconomic performance in the euro area?

One of the main goals of the European Union, laid down, inter alia, in the Lisbon Strategy and in the “Europe 2020” Strategy, is to raise employment. One important means of supporting the creation of new jobs is to increase competition. In this paper, it is shown that on average the mark-up, i.e. the deviation of prices from marginal cost in the euro area still exceeds the levels observed in the UK and in the US. After completion of the Single Market Programme in 1993, the mark-up has declined in the euro area and even more in the UK. Nevertheless, there is a strong cross-country variation between Member States, with a particularly high mark-up ratio found for Italy. Panel estimations show that total factor productivity growth, labour productivity growth and the labour market performance in the euro area could be improved by reducing the mark-up. This could be achieved by a proper institutional design. More competition could indeed improve the macroeconomic performance.     

中国西部地区的能源开发与经济增长——基于"资源诅咒"假说的实证分析

Based on resource curse hypothesis, this paper carries out an econometric analysis on the relationship and its transmission mechanism between energy exploitation and economic growth with cross-province panel data over 1991–2006. Results reveal that there is the significantly negative correlation between energy exploitation and economic growth, which indicates since the 1990s, the resource curse effect from energy exploitation has appeared evidently; though, before the implementation of the Western development strategy, energy exploitation acted negatively on opening degree, S&T innovation and human capital input, the effect was yet uncreated. However, after the implementation of the strategy, the effect emerged evidently as a result of the enhanced negative effect of energy exploitation on S&T innovation and human capital input. Moreover, further tests indicate that energy exploitation impeded economic growth mainly through three indirect transmission channels: The crowding-out effect towards human capital input and S&T innovation, and the weakening of institution aroused by rent-seeking and corruption. And among them, human capital input is the strongest transmission factor. __________ Translated from Jingji yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2008, (4): 147–160     

Technological Innovation and High-Quality Economic Development

Linking technological innovation with high-quality economic development is a complex process. So far, there has been little academic research on the mechanism and internal law of technological innovation related to high quality economic development. After streamlining the research context of technological innovation in the deductive development of economic growth theory, this paper summarizes and extracts the core connotation of high-quality economic development from the concept of high-quality development and at micro, meso and macro dimensions. The internal law of technological innovation promoting high-quality economic development is revealed from six aspects, including total factor productivity, supply of high-quality products and services, industrial structure upgrading, consumption structure upgrading, resources and environment, and promoting social equity. This paper then puts forward policy recommendations for technological innovation promoting high-quality economic development at micro, meso and macro dimensions. Microscopically, organizations including R&D enterprises, universities and research institutes should have their creativity enhanced; mesoscopically, the levels of industrial chain, value chain and regional technological innovation growth pole should be improved; and macroscopically, China should raise its overall technology competitiveness in the world for high-quality economic development driven by technological innovation. This paper proposes six issues on technological innovation related to high-quality development that deserve in-depth discussion, including identifying the standards and boundaries of innovation, capturing the orientation of technological innovation, and raising the rate of transforming technological innovation achievements, etc.     

中国全要素生产率的估算:1979—2004

本文在分析比较了全要素生产率四种估算方法的基础上,估算出我国1979—2004年间的全要素生产率增长率,并对我国全要素生产率增长和经济增长源泉做了简要分析。分析表明(1)1993年以前,我国的全要素生产率增长率总体呈现出涨跌互现的波动情形且波动较为剧烈频繁,1993年以来,则呈现出逐年下降趋势,直到2000年才得以缓解,此后全要素生产率增长率总体呈现出逐年攀升势头;(2)1979—2004年间我国全要素生产率增长率及其对经济增长的贡献率较低,表明我国经济增长主要依赖于要素投入增长,是一种较为典型的投入型增长方式;(3)我国全要素生产率增长率较低的原因在于技术进步率偏低、生产能力没有得到充分利用、技术效率低下和资源配置不尽合理。     

Innovation and productivity in manufacturing and service firms in Catalonia: a regional approach

This article analyses the determinants of research and development (R&D) and the role of innovation on labour productivity in Catalan firms. Our empirical analysis found a considerable heterogeneity in firm performances between the manufacturing and service industries and between low- and high-tech industries. The frontiers that separate manufacturing and service industries are increasingly blurred. In Catalonia high-tech knowledge-intensive services (KIS) play a strategic role in promoting innovation in both manufacturing and service industries, and driving growth throughout the regional economy. Empirical results show new firms created during the period 2002–2004 that have a greater R&D intensity than incumbent firms (54.1% in high-tech manufacturing industries and 68.8% in high-tech KIS). Small and young firms in the high-tech KIS sector are very prone to carrying out R&D and they invest more in innovation projects. R&D expenditures, output innovation, investment in physical capital, market share and export have positive effects on labour productivity in both the manufacturing and service sectors. Firm size, on the other hand, has a positive effect on productivity in manufacturing industries but not in services.     

The Economic Consequences of the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 150

SFAS No. 150, “Accounting For Certain Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Both Liabilities and Equity” (SFAS 150), requires companies to report mandatorily redeemable preferred stock (MRPS) as a liability, and the dividends on these securities as interest expense. The purpose of this study is to examine the economic consequences of SFAS 150’s adoption on a sample of public companies. Our analysis indicates that adoption resulted in both intended and possible unintended economic consequences. Specifically: (1) the impact of SFAS 150 on non-public companies caused the FASB to review its position on the disclosures concerning MRPS; (2) some companies redeemed their MRPS prior to the adoption date of the standard; and (3) approximately 4% of sample firms were required to disclose MRPS as a liability.