Spillovers and the competitive pressure for long-run innovation

This paper discusses the impact of oligopolistic product markets for innovation and growth, highlighting a novel, fundamental role of spillovers. We develop a model of endogenous growth with non-tournament R&D, where spillovers raise the relative R&D efficiency of laggards. A key feature is that the rate of innovation and the market configuration (i.e. the distribution of market shares) are jointly determined. Our results emphasize the role of spillovers in sustaining the competitive pressure that is fundamental for long-run innovation and economic growth.     

Environmental regulations and innovation activity in UK manufacturing industries

We examine the relationship between environmental regulations and innovation, using data from UK manufacturing industry during 2000-2006. We estimate a dynamic model of innovation behaviour, and explicitly account for the likely endogeneity of our measure of the stringency of environmental regulations (pollution abatement costs). Our results indicate that while on the one hand environmental R&D and investment in environmental capital are stimulated by greater pollution abatement pressures, on the other hand there is not a positive impact of environmental regulation on total R&D or total capital accumulation. We find some evidence that this is because more stringent environmental regulations directly lower the optimal expenditure on non-environmental innovations. In addition, we find that environmental R&D may crowd out non-environmental R&D, although there is no evidence that environmental capital crowds out non-environmental capital.     

Research & development and growth: A Bayesian model averaging analysis

We examine the effect of research and development (R&D) on long-term economic growth using the Bayesian model averaging (BMA) to deal rigorously with model uncertainty. Previous empirical studies, which applied BMA, investigated the effect of dozens of regressors on long-term growth, but they did not examine the effect of R&D due to data unavailability. We extend these studies by proposing to capture the investment in R&D by the number of Nobel prizes in science. Using our indicator, the estimates show that R&D exerts a positive effect on long-term growth. This result is robust to many different parameter and model prior structures as well as to alternative definitions of R&D indicator.     

Multiplicity and stagnation under the Romer model with increasing returns of R&D

This study develops a simple growth model to explain stagnation and non-simple growth patterns by using increasing returns of R&D efficiency. The study adopts a type of the lab-equipment model, namely, the Romer model, where goods are used as R&D input. Here, we assume capital, or durable goods, as the R&D input factor, and R&D efficiency is assumed to be variable. This arrangement yields three steady states, namely: no-growth, low-growth, and high-growth steady states. These trajectories are jumpable. Accordingly, global indeterminacy is obtained. By uniting the numerical analysis, we obtain that all steady states are saddle stable. However, when the increasing R&D efficiency is small, the path converging to a high-growth-rate steady state shows local indeterminacy.     

Measuring innovation in long product development cycle industries: an insight in biotechnology

This paper examines and measures innovation in the context of biotechnology firms by analysing the link between R&D, innovation performance and organisational growth. We conceptualise innovation performance as a latent construct with two dimensions: innovation efficacy and innovation efficiency. We use structural equations modelling to test the hypotheses on a data set from the biotechnology industry. Results support our innovation performance conceptualisation which is found to be especially useful to measure innovation in industries with long product development cycles. Findings also underline the importance of R&D knowledge creation for biotechnology firms.     

Knowledge investments, business R&D and innovativeness of countries: A qualitative meta-analytic comparison

The relationship between knowledge investments, innovation and competitiveness is an important topic in both academic research and economic policy and has been studied extensively over the past decades. Nowadays, investments in private and public R&D are believed to make up the heart of a modern knowledge economy. The present paper adopts an evolutionary economics perspective and investigates whether, in addition to private R&D activities, also institutional support systems and policy interventions play a role in inducing innovation initiatives and creating impacts on the performance and competitiveness of industries. We aim to find support for the hypothesis that the competitiveness of industries in the international arena is sustained by the dynamic interaction between national, regional and sectoral innovation systems. This may provide stakeholders with a better understanding of the context in which they operate. Since according to the evolutionary metaphor, the growth of an innovation system follows complex dynamics that cannot simply be analysed within a static quantitative equilibrium framework, we use here an alternative approach based on qualitative pattern recognition analysis originating from artificial intelligence analysis. Besides R&D expenditures, human capital expenditures are regarded as the major input in the knowledge creation process in our analytical framework. To this end, in our paper a qualitative causal model that maps out conditional relations between key factors in national innovation systems will be described. The focus of our investigation is on systematic patterns in the competitiveness of the EU Member States, using statistical information on innovation input and output data from the European Innovation Scoreboard. In our analysis we find support for the hypothesis that there are indeed significant interactions between distinct institutional levels, which may provide guidance to the strategic orientation of nations and the European Union in terms of the emphasis on competitiveness vis-à-vis cohesion.     

Effects of a blocking patent on R&D with endogenous survival activities

This study analyzes the effect of strengthening patent protection for innovation and economic growth by introducing a blocking patent into the endogenous growth model developed by Furukawa (Econ Lett 121(1):26–29, 2013a), which features survival activity of patent holders in the R&D sector with a variety-expansion model. Results show that strengthening patent protection can raise the economic growth rate and social welfare through an endogenous survival investment. Additionally, this study examines the effects of increasing subsidies for R&D. We find that increasing R&D subsidy rate can negatively affect economic growth and social welfare because of the investment for survival activities. This result shows the novel role of a blocking patent in determining innovation effects of R&D subsidies. Furthermore, we analyze the effect of patent breadth which is another patent instrument in this model on innovation and economic growth. Results show that the growth and welfare effects of the profit-division rule and the subsidy rate for R&D may vary with the size of patent breadth.     

Knowledge appropriability, firm size, and growth

Empirical evidence shows that the number of patents per R&D dollar declines with firm size. In this paper, we propose a Schumpeterian growth model that accounts for this evidence. We analyze an economy with firms that engage in cost-reducing innovation resulting from the accumulation of both codified and tacit knowledge: the former occurs through the purchase of patents, while the latter is the result of R&D conducted in-house by firms. We study the relation between knowledge appropriability and market structure, and we show that a shift from patents to in-house research occurs as firm size gets larger. Since innovation statistics concentrate mainly on patents, this process of research reallocation results into an under-estimation of innovative activity and is responsible for the declining ratio of patents to R&D expenditure. Survey data on UK-based firms provide support to our results.     

Anti-competitive conduct, in-house R&D, and growth

Incumbent firms have two basic possibilities to improve their competitive position in the product market: Investment in R&D and the creation of entry barriers to the disadvantage of potential rivals, e.g. through lobbying activities, campaign contributions, bribes or the adoption of incompatible technologies. This paper proposes a simple oligopoly model which raises the possibility that such anti-competitive conduct and R&D investment are complementary activities for incumbents. Consequently, an institutional framework or technological possibilities which encourage anti-competitive conduct, although impeding entry of potential rivals and accentuating standard oligopoly distortions, may foster R&D-based growth and welfare. However, this outcome is less likely if entrants exert technological spillover effects, e.g. through foreign direct investment. Stronger protection of intellectual property rights, although triggering anti-competitive conduct and thereby impeding market entry as well, is more likely to foster economic growth.     

Technological convergence, R&D, trade and productivity growth

This paper analyses productivity growth in a panel of 14 United Kingdom manufacturing industries since 1970. Innovation and technology transfer provide two potential sources of productivity growth for a country behind the technological frontier. We examine the roles played by research and development (R&D), international trade, and human capital in stimulating each source of productivity growth. Technology transfer is statistically significant and quantitatively important. While R&D raises rates of innovation, international trade enhances the speed of technology transfer. Human capital primarily affects output through private rates of return (captured in our index of labour quality) rather than measured TFP.     

The role of diminishing returns in neo-Schumpeterian growth theory

Summary. This paper generalizes Segerstrom [5], a dynamic general equilibrium model of endogenous growth through quality improvements in which innovation and imitation are modeled as the outcomes of research and development (R&D) races. Specific factors introduced into the technologies of both R&D activities achieve diminishing returns to scale in R&D. The comparative-static results of subsidies to R&D activities depend on the degree of diminishing returns to scale in R&D. When there is (is not) a sufficient degree of diminishing returns to R&D, a subsidy to innovative activity increases (decreases) innovative activity. Received: July 8, 1994; revised version: June 9, 1997     

Product market competition,R&D composition and growth

We revisit the relation between product market competition and leading-edge growth in a model where horizontal and vertical innovations simultaneously occur. We show that competition exerts an important effect on the composition of aggregate R&D (vertical versus horizontal). In fact, when product market competition gets more intense, a larger fraction of R&D is engaged in improving the quality of products; this occurs at the expense of a lower rate of horizontal innovation. This effect, which is absent in the basic endogenous growth model with only vertical innovations, may overturn the inverse relation between product market competition and leading-edge growth found in prior theoretical models.     

The struggle to survive in the R&D sector: Implications for innovation and growth

By allowing for investment activities by research and development (R&D) firms to prevent product obsolescence, we show that if legal patent protection is too strong, a higher R&D subsidy rate delivers insufficient investments for survival in the R&D sector, depressing innovation and growth in the long run.     

Property rights protection and corporate R&D: Evidence from China

Following the recent literature on institutions and economic growth, we examine the effects of property rights protection on corporate R&D. Using a unique 2003 World Bank survey of over 2400 firms in 18 Chinese cities, we obtain the following findings: (1) property rights protection is positively and significantly related to corporate R&D activity (for both process and product R&D); (2) government services and helping hand are conducive to corporate R&D, while informal payments to government officials are not; and (3) government ownership of firms and direct appointment of CEOs are negatively associated with corporate R&D activities. We also find that corporate R&D is positively related to firm size, and access to finance, but negatively related to product market competition and firm age.     

Occupational choice and entrepreneurship: effects of R&D subsidies on economic growth

Most R&D-based growth models fail to explicitly account for the role of entrepreneurs in economic growth. By contrast, this study accounts for this factor and constructs an overlapping-generations model that includes entrepreneurial innovation and the occupational choice of becoming an entrepreneur or a worker. For the role of entrepreneurs, even a policy intended to encourage innovation can negatively affect economic growth. For the effect of such policies, I focus on the role of R&D subsidies. I show that while R&D subsidies promote entrepreneurs’ R&D activities, they increase workers’ wages by boosting labor demand. Thus, it is more attractive to be a worker, which reduces the number of entrepreneurs. Subsidies can have both a negative and positive effect on growth, which results in an inverted U-shaped relationship between R&D subsidies and growth. In addition, a growth-maximizing R&D subsidy rate exists, although this rate is too high to maximize the welfare level of any one generation. When individuals are heterogeneous in their abilities, R&D subsidies reduce intra-generational inequalities.     

Managerial incentives, CEO characteristics and corporate innovation in China’s private sector

We use a unique World Bank survey of 1088 private manufacturing firms from 18 Chinese cities over the period 2000-2002 to empirically examine the roles of managerial incentives and CEO characteristics in a firm’s innovation activities. We look at both innovation effort (R&D intensity) and innovation performance measures such as new product sales. We obtain the following main results: (1) the presence of CEO incentive schemes increases both corporate innovation effort and innovation performance; (2) sales-based performance measures in the incentive scheme, as compared with profit-based performance measure, are more conducive to firm innovation; and (3) CEO education level, professional background and political connection are positively associated with firm’s innovation efforts. The main results are robust to endogeneity tests with instrumental variables. We also discuss some important policy implications.     

Innovation timing games: a general framework with applications

We offer a new algorithm for analyzing innovation timing games. Its main advantage over the traditional approach is that it applies to problems that had previously been intractable. We use the algorithm to examine two classical innovation problems. We find that the competition takes the form of a waiting game with a second-mover advantage either for any level of R&D costs (process innovation) or for high R&D costs (product innovation). Moreover, both models predict that the second-mover advantage is monotonically increasing in the costs of R&D.     

Information disclosure, banking development and knowledge-driven growth

In this study we develop a knowledge-driven growth model which explicitly models the banking sector as monopolistically competitive. The main mechanism through which financial intermediaries affect the real economy is through the evaluation and provision of liquidity to R&D projects. We distinguish two scenarios. In the regime with information disclosure, banks are able to use the stock of information obtained by the banking industry from evaluating R&D projects. This information externality brings about efficiency improvements, thereby leading to a positive entry of banks, more bank-funded research and in turn positive economic growth. By contrast, in the regime with no information disclosure, it is not profitable for new banks to enter the industry. This implies that no more potential R&D projects can be evaluated and hence financed, thus leading the economy to a zero-growth equilibrium.     

Private R&;D and Spillovers in European Agriculture

The objective of this paper is to present econometric evidence of the effects of economic incentives, public policies, and institutions on national aggregate private agricultural R&D investments. The main hypothesis we will test in this paper is whether agricultural R&D spillovers represent a disincentive for national private R&D. More specifically, we will test if the spillovers function, which is a determinant of private R&D, follows a quadratic form and if private R&D is determined by the role of incentives and institutions.A previous draft of this paper was presented at the 57th International Atlantic Economic Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 10–14 March 2004. Comments from participants have been very useful to improve the paper.     

On the impact of innovation and inequality in economic growth

We present robust results on the empirical relationship among income inequality, innovation, and economic growth for a panel dataset of 74 countries over the period 1996–2014. We estimate pairwise causality tests to show that there is bidirectional causality between GDP per capita and R&D, while R&D causes the Gini index of income inequality, and it causes human capital. Allowing coefficients to be different across cross-sections of countries, we get in any case a pairwise bi-directionality. By dynamic panel data estimations, when regressing R&D on GDP per capita, we obtain a threshold value of 0.16% of R&D such that for values above it there is economic growth. While regressing R&D on the Gini index, we get a threshold of 0.10% of R&D above which, the income distribution begins to improve. Finally, we estimate a growth equation that depends on R&D, income inequality, and physical capital. We obtain two thresholds, one of 38.79 for the Gini (above which the economic growth decreases), and one of 0.06% for R&D such that above it, economic growth is rising.