R&D efficiency and heterogeneity – a latent class application for the OECD

Expenditures devoted to research and development (R&D) are scarce and thus need to be used as efficiently as possible given the financial constraints countries are facing. This article assesses the relative efficiency of R&D expenditures for 26 OECD member countries and two nonmember countries. As countries differ in their national innovation systems and states of economic development and industrialization, e.g. transition economies in Eastern Europe versus Asian countries versus Anglo-Saxon countries, the measurement of R&D efficiency needs to consider differences in the technology of knowledge production. By means of a latent class model for stochastic frontiers, we relax the assumption of a homogeneous technology frontier and model technological differences in knowledge production among countries. Empirical evidence suggests the existence of different classes stressing the importance of accounting for countries’ disparities within R&D efficiency analysis.     

Poverty traps in a frictionless world: The effects of learning and technology assimilation

We study an endogenous growth model of technology assimilation through an adaptive learning process defining the accumulation of technological knowledge among both workers and industrial clusters. The assimilation of new technology and the arrival rate of innovations are both based on the distance from the technological frontier to the current technological development level of the country. We illustrate how, even if technological innovations become immediately available to all countries, and absent educational and institutional frictions among countries, differences in technological development levels allow for the existence of poverty traps leading to the economic stagnation of technological laggards.     

Testing creative destruction in an opening economy

This paper analyses the relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth using a Schumpeterian framework of technological innovation and applies it to sector‐level South African data. The framework examines direct and indirect effects of trade liberalization on productivity growth. Indirect impacts operate through a differential impact of trade liberalization on firms conditional on their distance from the international technological frontier. Results confirm positive direct impacts of trade liberalization. Results confirm also that the greatest positive impact of trade liberalization will be on sectors that are close to the international technological frontier and that experienced a low level of product market competition before liberalization.     

Genetic distance and cognitive human capital: a cross-national investigation

This paper explores the correlates of the intelligence quotient and cognitive ability by focusing on genetic distance to frontier nations. The results based on cross-sectional data from 167 countries suggest that genetic distance to global frontiers has a negative relationship with the employed human capital variables. Countries that are genetically far from leading nations tend to have lower levels of human capital with the negative correlation to the USA frontier averagely higher relative to the UK frontier. The sign is consistent and survives the control of macroeconomic, geographic, institutional and other covariates. Policy implications are discussed.     

金融转型、技术创新与中国经济 发展方式的转变

本文建立世代交叠模型,分析金融转型对技术创新和经济发展方式转变的影响。分析表明,在经济发展的早期阶段,选择以投资扩张和技术转移为基础的发展战略是后发国家促进技术进步的最优选择;当距离世界技术前沿越来越近时,技术进步的主要方式将会转向技术创新。在转变过程中,后发国家的金融发展水平具有门槛效应。后发国家在前一阶段赖以进行投资扩张的金融体制,加上追赶型发展战略下地方政府的增长最大化冲动,可能会延迟后发国家向以技术创新为基础的发展方式转变。     

产权性质、技术差距与高技术企业创新效率

基于两阶段价值链视角,将产权性质纳入企业创新研究框架,利用共同前沿理论和DEA模型测度分析2007-2016年两种前沿下中国区域不同性质企业创新效率差异,探索不同性质企业两阶段技术差距及其影响因素,结果表明：①中国各省份不同性质企业效率差异明显,国有企业研发和成果转化效率最低,而外资企业效率较高,各企业成果转化效率递减趋势明显,共同前沿下效率值均不超过群组前沿下效率值;②国有、民营等四大群组间在两阶段均存在明显的技术落差,成果转化阶段国有-港澳台、国有-外资之间的技术差距均值分别为0.124和0.110,且技术差距值在不断增大,2016年接近于0.300;③所有制结构加剧了国企与其它企业间技术差距,政府支持、劳动者素质对国有-民营、国有-外资企业两阶段技术差距起阻滞作用,产学研合作、知识产权保护、金融环境和外商投资对3种技术差距分别产生不同程度的影响。     

银行主导型金融对制造业企业技术进步的影响——基于技术距离的视角

制造业企业的技术发展离不开适宜类型的金融支持。那么,我国以商业银行为主导的金融体系对其具有怎样的影响？本文从技术距离视角出发,通过构建熊彼特内生增长模型探究银行主导型金融体系对制造业企业技术进步的影响效应及作用机理,并运用中国工业企业数据库与城市数据库的匹配数据进行实证检验。研究发现：当制造业企业远离技术前沿时,银行主导型金融对其技术进步具有明显的促进作用,但随着企业接近技术前沿,该作用将由正转负。相较于国有和抵押资产丰富的制造业企业,银行主导型金融对技术进步的负向作用在非国有和抵押资产匮乏企业中出现较早。机制检验表明,在远离技术前沿阶段,银行主导型金融能够激励制造业企业创新从而促进其技术进步,但在接近技术前沿后,银行主导型金融难以通过激励企业创新驱动其技术进步。研究结论对如何深化金融供给侧结构性改革、增强金融服务制造业之功效具有一定的指导意义。     

Migration,human capital accumulation and economic development

We study how the possibility of migration changes the composition of human capital in sending countries, and how this affects development. In our model, growth is driven by productivity growth, which occurs via imitation or innovation. Both activities use the same types of skilled labour as input, albeit with different intensities. Heterogenous agents accumulate skills in response to economic incentives. Migration distorts these incentives, and the accumulation of human capital. This slows down, or even hinders, economic development. The effect is stronger, the farther away the country is from the technological frontier.     

Migration, human capital accumulation and economic development

We study how the possibility of migration changes the composition of human capital in sending countries, and how this affects development. In our model, growth is driven by productivity growth, which occurs via imitation or innovation. Both activities use the same types of skilled labour as input, albeit with different intensities. Heterogenous agents accumulate skills in response to economic incentives. Migration distorts these incentives, and the accumulation of human capital. This slows down, or even hinders, economic development. The effect is stronger, the farther away the country is from the technological frontier.     

THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN COMPETITION ON SECTORAL GROWTH: A CROSS‐COUNTRY ANALYSIS

This paper examines the impact of competition on the total factor productivity (TFP) of 21 manufacturing sectors in eighteen OECD countries over the period of time 1990–2006. We assume that the source of TFP growth can be either domestic or foreign innovation or technology transfer from the technological frontier. Trade openness, R&D, and human capital can have two effects: a direct effect on TFP (e.g., through innovation) and an indirect effect depending on the productivity gap between a given country and the technological frontier. We find that tougher domestic competition is always associated with higher sectoral productivity. Both import and export penetrations are positively associated with an increase of TFP. However, the channels through which higher TFP is materialized are different: export penetration works through level effect, while import penetration acts mainly when conditional on the level of technological development. The economical magnitude of the effect is not trivial.     

技术创新促进经济增长的动力研究

根据经济增长理论及影响变化因素,结合我国经济发展实际,本文论证了技术创新促进经济增长的不同模式,提出了发展中国家促进技术创新发展的框架,技术创新是企业发展的根本动力。提高区域经济的增长速度和转变经济增长的方式是发展中国家的必由之路。在区域经济视角下研究影响企业技术创新的因素,通过政府和企业联动改善这些因素作用的效率,非常必要。论文首先根据技术创新理论,分析了不同层面的企业技术创新发展的影响因素。最后提出了区域经济视角下提高企业技术创新能力的对策,强调了政府、企业在技术创新中的不同作用。     

Frontier Expansion and Economic Development

Although finding new frontiers or reserves of natural resources to exploit has been the basis of much of global economic development for the past 500 years, frontier-based development does not appear to be producing sustained high rates of growth in today's poorer economies. Through a two-sector model of frontier expansion and economic growth in a resource-dependent small open economy, this article demonstrates that such expansion will lead inevitably to a boom and bust pattern of long-run development, even if the economy's terms of trade or commodity prices remain unchanged. Initially, it is always optimal for the economy to choose the maximum rate of frontier expansion and thus ensure an immediate economic boom. However, an eventual economic decline is unavoidable. This result provides an alternative explanation of recent empirical evidence that resource-abundant developing countries display lower than expected long-run rates of growth. (JEL O13 , O41 , Q32 , Q33 )     

A metafrontier approach for measuring Malmquist productivity index

This paper presents an alternative framework for the decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index by using the concept of a metafrontier. The approach employed allows the calculation of technical efficiency changes, as well as technical changes, for economic agents operating under different technologies. It also enables the computation of the technological gap and its changes for economic agents operating under different technologies. This framework is applied to the analysis of panel data on 58 countries over a period of 31 years from 1970 to 2000. The empirical results show that Asian countries have attempted to move towards the frontier technology and that European countries have taken the lead in the world frontier technology.     

Technology Adoption, Human Capital, and Growth Theory

The paper explores a model in which growth is determined by a combination of human capital and technology adoption. At the heart of the model is the notion of "contiguous knowledge"—the idea that knowledge spreads out a certain distance. Because of this property of knowledge, a country can adopt existing technology only when it is sufficiently close to the technological frontier. Unlike the neoclassical growth model, the proposed model predictions are pessimistic for countries that are far away from the frontier. The model is thus able to account both for rapid growth episodes and economic stagnation.     

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.     

追赶战略、人力资本及地区经济增长趋同——基于教育效率的水平创新模型的实证分析

文章基于一个教育效率的水平创新模型分析了落后地区对发达地区的人力资本与经济发展战略问题,指出人力资本是影响技术吸收与创新能力的主要因素。通常所言的静态比较优势战略无法改变落后地区在人力资本上的比较劣势,因而落后地区也就无法发挥所谓的后发优势进而实现与发达地区间的经济收敛。而只有基于教育质量与人力资本积累效率的提高,实行人力资本的动态比较优势战略或追赶战略才能让落后地区提高学习效率,真正发挥后发优势实现经济赶超。最后文章以中国为例验证了这一结论并简要提出了促进落后地区经济快速增长的政策建议。     

Technological innovation governance for winning the future

Both developed and developing worlds today face significant economic crises. For winning their future, all countries will have to boost their capacity to innovate. Since technological innovation has now become the mantra for employment generation through growth of exported goods and to ensure sustained economic growth, current national technological innovation capacity governance policies need to be grounded on four basic pillars: (1) adopting an actionable taxonomy of technological system components utilized by enterprises operating in the fiercely competitive global marketplace; (2) relying on greater public-private partnership for targeted specialization in emerging technology industries; (3) complementing research-university-linked incubators with metropolis-based innovation hotspots; and (4) mandating a prioritized choice criteria function for technological innovation project funding. Why these pillars are important and how to strengthen national technological innovation capacity building-blocks are described in this essay on the basis of lessons learned from studies in many Asian developing countries and some developed countries of the world.     

Technological innovation and knowledge network in Asia: Evidence from comparison of information and communication technologies among six countries

South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and India have become much larger force in the world economy. Due to the enormous contribution of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in economic growth, this study investigates four main issues related to technological innovation and knowledge network in ICT among six countries. First, indicators of technological innovation were evaluated and used to compare capability of technological innovation in ICT between the six countries. Secondly, differences in innovation configurations among six countries were manifested. Thirdly, relative innovation strengths of these six countries were examined in five sub-technological fields. Finally, this study consists of analyzing the interactions into knowledge network among them; moreover, this study manifests the difference of knowledge network in five sub-technological field of ICT. The empirical findings of this study, based on analysis of a patent and citation dataset comprised of all patents granted by the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) to assignees in six countries from 1976 to 2006, are helpful to understand the comparative development of technological innovation of ICT in six countries.     

智能网联汽车跨国技术合作网络结构特征与驱动机制研究

智能网联汽车技术研发具有高度复杂性和不确定性，跨国技术合作创新成为各国实现技术突破与引领的战略选择。运用社会网络分析方法和二次指派程序模型，以33023项专利为基础，探讨2006—2018年全球智能网联汽车跨国技术合作网络结构特征与驱动机制。结果表明，从技术发展萌芽期到成长期，参与智能网联汽车技术合作的国家数呈快速增长态势，但整体合作网络还不够完整和规范。美国是智能网联汽车跨国技术合作网络的集线器和枢纽，以美国、德国为首的传统科技强国在网络中占据绝对中心地位，网络具有明显的核心—边缘结构。块模型结果表明，智能网联汽车技术合作模式以核心国为中心，由核心国和强半边缘国主导。技术邻近性、社会邻近性、政策强度是智能网联汽车跨国技术合作网络演化的主要驱动力，正向影响跨国技术合作关系演化。地理距离与制度距离在智能网联汽车技术合作中的作用随时间推移变得不显著。智能网联汽车跨国技术合作网络驱动因素存在发展阶段、区域以及不同政策强度组合的“三维”异质性特征。各国应以更加开放的态度参与智能网联汽车技术研发合作，高度重视相关法规政策设计与实施，以实现国际技术合作创新与突破，推动全球传统汽车产业向智能化转型。     

中国不同行业全球价值链位置对创新效率的影响

关注中国各行业全球价值链位置对创新性效率的影响,基于新古典经济理论提出假设,采用非竞争性投入产出法计算中国19个代表性行业在全球价值链中的位置及变化趋势,测算其整体创新效率。进一步将创新效率分解为技术进步指数、规模效率指数、纯技术效率指数,通过观察分解变量值揭示行业差异。结果表明：研发阶段,处于全球价值链上游的行业,行业技术前沿水平上升,行业整体向前沿靠近的程度降低;生产阶段,处于全球价值链上游的行业,行业技术前沿水平下降,行业整体向前沿靠近的程度上升。