Globalization,product differentiation,and wage inequality

Abstract This paper develops a two‐country, general equilibrium model of oligopoly in which the degree of horizontal product differentiation is endogenously determined by firms’ strategic investments in product innovation. Consumers seek variety and product innovation is more skill intensive than production. Stronger import competition increases innovation incentives, and thereby the relative demand for skill. An intra‐industry trade expansion following trade liberalization can therefore increase wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. As long as some industries remain shielded from international competition, the welfare implications of globalization are found to be generally ambiguous.     

Trade, product cycles, and inequality within and between countries

Abstract.  This paper incorporates Northern product innovation and product‐cycle‐driven technology transfer into the continuum‐of‐goods Heckscher‐Ohlin model. The creation of very skill‐intensive goods induces the North to transfer production of older, less skill‐intensive goods to the South. These relocated goods are the most skill intensive by Southern standards. Hence, product cycles raise the relative demand for skilled workers and thus wage inequality within both regions. This runs contrary to the Stolper‐Samuelson theorem, but accords well with the fact that wage inequality has risen in both Northern and Southern countries. Moreover, product cycles increase income inequality between countries. JEL classification: F1     

BIGGER IS BETTER: MARKET SIZE,DEMAND ELASTICITY,AND INNOVATION*

This article proposes a novel mechanism whereby larger markets increase competition and facilitate process innovation. Larger markets, in the sense of more people or more open trade, support a larger variety of goods, resulting in a more crowded product space. This raises the price elasticity of demand and lowers markups. Firms, therefore, become larger to break even. This facilitates process innovation, as larger firms can amortize R&D costs over more goods. We demonstrate this mechanism in a standard model of process and product innovation. In doing so, we question some important results in the new trade and endogenous growth literatures.     

Entrepreneurial innovations,competition and competition policy

We construct a model where an entrepreneur can innovate for entry or for sale. It is shown that increased product market competition tends to increase the relative profitability of innovation for sale. Increased competition not only reduces the profits of entrants and the acquirer of the inventions in a similar fashion, but also reduces the profit of non-acquirers. Therefore, incumbents' valuations of innovations are less negatively affected by increased competition, and the incentive for innovation for sale can increase with increased competition. Moreover, a stricter, but not too strict, merger policy is shown to increase the incentive for innovations for sale by ensuring the bidding competition for the innovation.     

Technology,Growth and Employment

The relationship between technology, productivity and employment is a complex one. Increased productivity can lead not just to increased market share, but through falling relative prices can help expand markets, and through product innovation can develop new markets. On the other hand, if demand and hence output does not expand in line with productivity, then an inverse relation between productivity and employment will result. The European Union seeks to improve living standards in Europe by boosting productivity, competitiveness and employment together. How, though, is this to be achieved? This paper looks at the effects on productivity of different forms of investment--in physical capital, in Research & Development, and in human capital. The paper also distinguishes between the high-tech and low-tech sectors. There does appear to be scope for boosting both productivity and employment, particularly in the high tech sectors. But to do so will require increased investment across all three categories--in machinery, in innovation and in people.     

Disentangling the effects of process and product innovation on cost and demand

ABSTRACT

We explore in this note different structural models of the impact of process and product innovation on firms' demand and production cost functions. We find that the introduction of process and product innovations affects them differently as could be expected. Both product and process innovation shift forward the demand for the products of the firm. Process innovation reduces production marginal cost, but not always. A possibility, that we cannot prove or reject with the current specification of our models and available data, is that process innovation associated with product innovation raise marginal cost. Interestingly, we also find that advertising significantly augments demand but does not affect production marginal cost. To obtain broader conclusions, richer data will be needed allowing an enlargement of the model, in which process and product innovations could be specified distinctively and well identified.     

中国金融产品创新中的信息需求——基于美国次贷危机视角

美国次贷危机对中国金融产品创新的启示主要在于:金融产品创新不能脱离市场实际需求、投资者的实际需求和现实服务技术水平.中国金融产品创新中信息需求的要求是,提高信息敏感程度,提高与投资者关系的互动能力,提高金融产品创新能力.     

虚拟组织持续创新:内涵、本质与机理

互联网技术革命及消费者需求的不断更新推动了虚拟组织的诞生与发展,作为新型的价值创造系统,虚拟组织以核心能力为结点,能够集成整合价值链上的优势资源,紧抓市场机遇,持续为客户创造价值。首先,厘清了虚拟组织持续创新的内涵与本质。在此基础上,分别论述了虚拟组织持续创新的4大构件即创新动力、创新过程、学习能力与界面管理,及其之间的交互作用,提出了虚拟组织持续创新的运行机理,旨在深化对虚拟组织持续创新的研究和认识。     

Technological innovation and the demand for labor by firms in expansion and recession

ABSTRACT

With firm data from the Spanish Community Innovation Survey (CIS) for the period 2003–2014, we find a positive and significant effect of innovation in the demand for labor when firms introduce product and process innovations in the same time period. The effect of innovation on the demand for labor is countercyclical, higher in the recession, after 2008, than in the expansion, before 2008, but the probability that firms innovate in product and process is counter-cyclical, i.e. lower in the recession. Altogether, the elasticity of the demand for labor to the probability that firms introduce product and process innovations remains stable throughout the sample period, at around 0.035. Innovation contributes to stabilize average employment during the cycle, more so when the innovation is in product, alone or together with process, than when it is only in process. These results are broadly consistent with product and process innovations shifting firms’ demand and production functions upwards, but differentially in expansions (less product market competition) than in contractions (more competition).     

Dynamic control of a monopolist’s product and process innovation with reference quality

ABSTRACT

Our main purpose is to investigate the dynamic control problem of a monopolist’s product and process innovation under reference quality. The main features of this article are: (i) a monopolist dealing with customer behaviour in the spirit of the principle of behaviour economics determines the product price, and carries out the activities of product and process innovation; (ii) the consumers’ demand depends on price, product quality and reference quality, and adopts an additive separable demand function form. Our main results show that under the cases of the monopolist optimum and the social planner optimum, (i) there exists an unique stable, which is a saddle-point steady-state equilibrium; (ii) the change rates of the monopolist’s investments in product and process innovation are increasing with the reference quality, while the monopolist’s steady-state investments in product and process innovation are decreasing with the reference quality; (iii) as the memory parameter increases with other parameters kept constant, it is very likely that the monopolist’s investment in process innovation be greater than the investment in product innovation; and (iv) the social incentive towards both investments in product and process innovation is always larger than the private incentive characterizing the profit-seeking monopolist.     

需求导向的企业技术创新能力成长理论

以8家重点工业企业(哈电、大唐电信、中国船舶、海尔、海信、奇瑞、长庆油田、鞍钢)为案例研究对象,系统探讨了需求在企业技术创新能力成长中的作用机理,提出需求导向的技术创新能力成长理论模型———"需求导向-实践积累-能力跃迁"模型。该模型包括以下3个命题:第一,需求导向是指企业主动把握需求带来的创新实践机会,这些机会来自需求宽度(国家战略需求、国际市场需求、国内市场需求和企业内部需求)和需求深度(首次需求、需求升级和创造需求)的不同组合及其动态变化;第二,企业技术创新能力的积累表现为能力宽度(整体产品/工艺技术能力)和能力深度(核心技术能力)的动态组合提升,这种积累是企业在技术创新核心过程的5个要素(技术来源、产品设计、工艺设计、生产/制造和自主品牌)的动态组合上进行持续实践的结果;第三,企业技术创新能力的积累可以形成向"主导产业链创新的能力"的跃迁,该能力的主导力量来源具有多样性,由整体产品/工艺技术能力、核心技术能力、自主品牌3个核心要素及其不同组合决定。     

Demand and innovation in productivity growth

The labour productivity impact of demand and innovation is investigated in this paper combining insights from the Kaldorian and Schumpeterian traditions. After a review of studies in such traditions, a general model is proposed for explaining productivity growth in European manufacturing and service industries in the late 1990s, followed by two distinct specifications for the industries oriented toward product innovation, and for those where process innovation dominates. The empirical analysis is based on the match of the SIEPI‐CIS2 database developed at the University of Urbino and Eurostat Input–Output Tables at the industry level, for 22 manufacturing sectors and 10 services sectors. Six European countries are considered: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The results show that productivity growth in European industries can be explained by a combination of technology factors and demand dynamics, confirming the complementarity of technology and demand effects. On the demand side, household consumption emerges as the most pervasive component of demand, able to stimulate greater efficiency in all manufacturing and service industries. Investment also has a role, focused however on the capital goods producing industries. On the technology side, the mechanisms of productivity growth are fundamentally different in the industries oriented towards product innovation and in those dominated by process innovation. This evidence supports the view that innovation in firms and industries can be associated to two contrasting strategies, searching either for technological competitiveness, through knowledge generation, product innovation and expansion of new markets, or aiming at greater cost competitiveness, through job reductions, labour saving investment, flexibility and restructuring.     

Technology and the dynamics of comparative advantage

This paper explores how trade affects innovation in a two‐country, two‐good, two‐factor Heckscher–Ohlin model with heterogeneous firms. Trade openness induces an increase in process innovation in both industries. The increase is stronger in the comparative advantage industry. Trade openness boosts prospective entrants' profits in that industry, which leads to further increases in product innovation. Trade liberalization generates a different relative impact on innovation across industries, depending on trade costs. When they are high (low), it increases process innovation relatively more in the comparative advantage (disadvantage) industry, leading to TFP divergence (convergence) across industries.     

Product cycles, endogenous skill acquisition, and wage inequality

Abstract .  This paper presents an endogenous product cycle overlapping generations model, where the supply of skilled labour is endogenously determined. This is used to examine how production shifts through imitation by developing countries affect the domestic wage differential and supply of skilled labour in developed countries. In the model, production shifts increase the demand for researchers in developed countries and cause higher relative wages for skilled labour: this leads to more individuals acquiring the skills. As a consequence, the model helps to explain the simultaneous increase in the domestic wage gap and in the supply of skilled labour observed in developed countries.     

Export performance of the Asian miracle economies: The role of innovation and product variety

Traditional export models fall short of explaining the marked increase in exports of the Asian miracle economies in the post‐WWII period. A model showing that exports are driven by innovations, innovative competitiveness, demand and price competitiveness is estimated for China, India, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan over the period 1953–2010. The results demonstrate that innovation stocks and competitiveness are important determinants behind their success. Furthermore, innovation stocks and innovative competitiveness are shown to be less influential for export growth in China and India and their export booms have been fuelled by process rather than product innovation.     

Labour Demand, Wage Mark-ups and Product Market Integration

Globalization makes it easier to relocate production and thus employment across countries. Therefore, it is often asserted that labour demand becomes more elastic, causing wage mark-ups to fall and thus erode the effective market power of trade unions. We explore this issue in a general equilibrium model where the elasticity of labour demand is endogenized and related to the facility by which production can be relocated across countries. Wages and employment increase unambiguously as a result of product market integration, but it is ambiguous whether wage mark-ups decrease or increase. A numerical illustration suggests that the elasticity effect – even when the wage mark-up falls – is of second order relative to the gains from trade.      

非正规部门竞争与企业创新行为关系研究

非正规部门快速发展在缓解中国就业压力、满足低端需求和促进经济增长的同时,对中国制造业企业经营带来了很大影响。基于2012年世界银行营商环境调查数据,分析非正规部门灰色竞争对中国制造业企业创新活动的影响。研究发现：非正规部门灰色竞争显著增加企业研发投入倾向和研发投入强度;灰色竞争与企业产品创新活动有显著正相关关系,但未发现与企业流程创新活动有显著关系;制造业中高新技术企业创新活动受非正规部门灰色竞争的影响相对较弱。用工具变量控制内生性后,以上结论依然成立。为了应对非正规部门的灰色竞争,制造业企业应不断强化研发投入,通过模仿创新和微创新的方式加速产品更新升级,以区分于非正规部门的产品。     

国际合资企业IJVs的研发环境与产品创新：技术创新成果保护的调节作用

目前成立在华国际合资企业是我国引进外商投资的重要途径之一。本文通过实证研究探究在华国际合资企业研发环境与其产品创新绩效之间的关系。研究结果显示,在华IJVs所处的研发环境中,政府支持、市场环境、知识环境以及市场对创新的需求都对产品创新绩效具有直接影响,基础设施与社会环境这一因素对在华IJVs产品创新的影响并不显著。研究还发现,在华国际合资企业采取技术创新成果的竞争性保护措施和法律保护措施均会对在华IJVs研发环境和产品创新之间的关系产生调节作用。     

智力资本组态效应对企业生态创新的影响——基于fsQCA方法的实证分析

在考虑市场竞争和绿色产品需求情境下，运用fsQCA方法从组态视角探讨智力资本要素影响生态创新的内在作用机制和条件路径。通过对188家制造企业进行实证检验，研究发现：企业会根据外部情境选择不同的高生态创新实现路径。其中，人力资本是企业无形资产中最具核心价值的资产，是企业实施生态创新的必要条件；组织资本和关系资本在创新过程中发挥权变作用；市场竞争和绿色产品需求是企业实施生态创新的外部推力。智力资本（某些）要素缺失或错配是导致低生态创新产生的内在原因，而绿色产品需求弱、市场竞争不激烈是导致低生态创新的外部原因。上述研究结论可为企业生态创新实践提供直接理论依据，对指导我国企业实施生态创新具有重要现实意义。     

制造企业组织柔性、动态服务创新能力与服务创新绩效

随着制造业服务化转型的逐渐深入，服务成为价值交换的核心要素，企业研发工作的重心从产品创新延伸到服务创新。在服务创新背景下，市场需求、关键资源和创新模式的内涵都发生了根本改变，促使企业不断提高自身适应性以应对挑战。然而，目前关于该主题的研究尚不充分。分析并验证了制造企业组织柔性对动态服务创新能力和服务创新绩效的影响。从支撑服务创新的角度出发，将组织柔性划分为组织文化柔性、组织结构柔性和人力资源柔性，分析了组织柔性通过增强企业动态服务创新能力（服务需求感知能力、服务方案开发能力和服务系统重构能力）提升服务创新绩效的作用机制，构建了反映上述概念之间关系的理论模型。以组织市场（B2B）作为研究背景，面向制造企业管理者收集数据，通过实证分析对理论模型进行检验。研究结果表明：组织柔性对服务创新绩效具有积极影响，动态服务创新能力和市场动态性分别在二者间关系中起中介作用和调节作用。最后，就企业如何提高组织柔性，增强动态服务创新能力，进而改善服务创新绩效提出若干建议和对策。