Linking Knowledge to Productivity: A Germany-Italy Comparison Using the CIS Database

This paper employs micro-aggregated data from the FirstCommunity Innovation Survey for assessing the contribution of the level and type of R & D spending, the purchase of new machinerywith embodied technological change, economies of scale, and information sharing with client and suppliers to productivity(total sales per employee) in German and Italian firms in 20 manufacturing industries. The regression analysis confirms theresults of previous studies that R & D and technological change embodied in new machinery and capital equipment aremajor factors affecting productivity at the firm level. However, the elasticity of productivity to both R & D and embodiedtechnological change is higher in Germany than in Italy. Conversely, information sharing with clients and suppliersrelated to innovation projects does not result in higher productivity, with the exception of a few industries (inparticular those producing traditional consumer goods) in Germany.     

Franchise fee,contract bargaining,and economic growth

This paper combines the industrial organization (IO) theory and the R&D-based endogenous growth theory in a model of a successive imperfect competitive economy. The current study assumes that firms between upstream and downstream industries bargain over both the price of intermediate goods and the franchise fee. Findings show that the intermediate goods firm with a R&D sector charges the price equal to the marginal cost. Economic rent may also be partly transferred into the franchise fee determined by the relative bargaining power. In particular, the traditional double marginalization result, such as in Spengler (1950), does not take place here due to the above-mentioned bargaining scheme. Finally, this work shows that final goods firms in vertically linked industries play an important role in an economic growth model. The more bargaining power the final goods firms have (or the more returns to specialization upstream firms have, or the less substitution elasticity the final goods have), the more the economy grows. However, the consumer preference for diversity seemingly does not affect economic growth rate.     

Technological change and forms of innovation in consumer magazine publishing: a UK-based study

This paper presents the results of research undertaken between 2002 and 2004 into the impact of technological change on the UK consumer magazine industry. The findings highlight patterns of innovation, both in the range of products (most notably monthly magazine titles) and the structure of organisations and work practices, which have tended to elude much of the contemporary debate within the ‘cultural industries’ approach adopted in the media studies discipline. Instead, our analysis makes use of insights from the innovation literature to highlight the impact of technological discontinuities on the capabilities of both incumbent firms and new entrants. It also highlights the important and growing role that is being played in innovation-led industries through the adoption of organisational practices that find their origins in the traditions of project-based firms.     

Anticipation effects of technological progress on capital accumulation: a vintage capital approach

Due to embodied technological progress new generations of capital goods are more productive. Therefore, in order to study the effects of technological progress, a model must be analyzed in which different generations of capital goods can be distinguished. We determine in what way the firm adjusts current investments to predictions of technological progress. In the presence of market power we show that a negative anticipation effect occurs, i.e. current investments in recent generations of capital goods decline when faster technological progress will take place in the future, because then it becomes more attractive to wait for new generations of capital goods. In case that only investments in new machines are possible, actually a whole wave of anticipation phases arises.     

Is Embodied Technology the Result of Upstream R&D? Industry-Level Evidence

This paper provides an exploratory analysis of whether data on the research and development (R&D) spending directed at particular technological/product fields can be used to measure industry-level capital-embodied technological change. Evidence from the patent literature suggests that the R&D directed at a product, as the main input into the “innovation” production function, is proportional to the value of the innovations in that product. I confirm this hypothesis by showing that the decline in the relative price of a good is positively correlated with the R&D directed at that product. The hypothesis implies that the technological change, or innovation, embodied in an industry's capital is proportional to the R&D that is done (“upstream”) by the economy as a whole on each of the capital goods that a (“downstream”) industry purchases. Using R&D data from the National Science Foundation, I construct measures of capital-embodied R&D. I find they have a strong effect on conventionally measured total-factor productivity growth, a phenomenon that seems to be due partly to the mismeasurement of quality change in the capital stock and partly to a positive correlation between embodied and disembodied technological change. Finally, I find the cross-industry variation in empirical estimates of embodied technological change accord with the cross-industry variation in embodied R&D. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: O3.     

Technological development, technology spillover and profitability: An industry level empirical analysis of Chinese manufacturing industries

In this paper, we use industry level panel data regression models to examine the technology spillovers from large- and medium-sized enterprises (LMEs) into non-LMEs, as well as from state-owned LMEs into state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises, in Chinese manufacturing industries. Our study reveals that technological developments in LMEs have a technology spillover effect upon non-LMEs, and state-owned LMEs have a strong technology spillover effect upon both state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises in manufacturing industries with below average technological capital intensity. As the agents of knowledge diffusion and providers of technological public goods, state-owned LMEs have played a critical role in bridging the technology gap between advanced technologies brought in by foreign funded enterprises and the technological base of other local firms, and thus have facilitated the assimilation and adaptation of advanced foreign technologies in the development of the Chinese manufacturing industry.     

Capital as Embodied Knowledge: Some Implications for the Theory of Economic Growth

Capital goods are embodied knowledge of how to produce. Therefore, capital development is a learning process, through which knowledge gets embodied in new capital goods. Because the necessary knowledge is dispersed among many people who must interact to communicate their particular, often tacit knowledge, capital development is a social process. Because this interaction takes time and continually changes the capital structure, capital development is an on-going process. Capital development is a social learning process. Neither traditional nor new growth theory illuminates how the capital structure evolves. Traditional growth theory, by modeling capital as single variable in the production function, ignores the heterogeneity of capital goods and their varied structural relationships of complementarity, substitutability, feedback, and feed-forward. New growth theory, while accounting for technological change, still treats capital as aggregable and thus implicitly homogeneous. That capital development is a learning process suggests that growth rates can increase. What prevents exponential growth is neither diminishing returns nor upper bounds to human capital, as growth models assume. It is the constant challenge of maintaining capital complementarities in a world of incomplete and rapidly changing knowledge.     

Appropriate technology assessment: A note on policy considerations

This paper summarizes various positions on appropriate technology and its relation to technological dependence, and certain contradictions within the concept are pointed out. An alternative approach to policy questions in appropriate technology assessment and independence is then proposed using a framework involving three economic sectors—the consumer goods sector, capital goods sector, and technological change sector.     

International technology spillovers,human capital and productivity linkages: evidence from the industrial sector

The paper estimates an empirical model that is consistent with a variety of Research and Development (R&D)-driven models of growth where technology is transmitted via trade to other industries, both domestically and internationally, by being embodied in differentiated intermediate goods. The evidence is based on data from 21 manufacturing industries in six European Union countries for the period 1980–1997. The contribution of the paper lies in showing how by including human capital in the model and employing suitable econometric procedures the magnitude of R&D spillovers reported in the existing literature can be affected, while pointing to a major role of human capital in economic growth process.     

Gross Investment And Technological Change

The impact of technological change upon gross investment has been relatively ignored. Building upon the foundations of the analysis of technological diffusion, an empirical model of gross investment is constructed that takes due account of technological change. This model is then tested upon a panel data set covering 185 UK firms over the period from 1984 to 1992. The results support the hypothesis that there are significant relationships of the expected signs between firm level gross investment, indicators of technological opportunity; the price of the capital goods that embody new technology, and firm and industry characteristics. There is also evidence of lagged adjustment effects in the investment process.     

Obsolescence and modernization in the growth process

In this paper, an endogenous growth model is built up incorporating Schumpeterian creative destruction and embodied technological progress. Under embodiment, long run growth is affected by two opposite effects: (i) obsolescence costs add to the user cost of capital, which have a negative effect on research efforts; and (ii) the modernization of capital increases the demand for investment goods, raising the incentives to undertake research activities. Applied to the understanding of the growth enhancing role of both capital and R&D subsidies, we conclude that the positive effect of modernization generally more than compensates the negative effect of obsolescence.     

人工智能对制造企业是否存在“生产率悖论”

在新一轮科技变革和产业革命背景下,人工智能已深度融入国民经济各产业,成为产业发展的重要驱动力。人工智能能否促进制造企业生产率提升,已成为新时代中国制造业高质量发展的关键。利用2015—2017年中国A股制造业上市公司相关数据,实证检验人工智能对制造企业生产率的影响,构建基于结构方程的多重中介效应模型,分析制造企业应用人工智能技术影响生产率的内在机制及路径。研究发现,人工智能提升了制造企业生产率;市场份额对人工智能与制造企业生产率的关系有显著负向调节作用;人工智能通过劳动力数量、物质资本使用效率和技术创新产出3种中介变量显著促进企业生产率提升,并通过人力资本使用效率和技术创新投入抑制企业生产率提升。     

Capabilities, Structures and Strategies Re-Examined: Incumbent Firms and the Emergence of Complex Product Systems (CoPS) in Mature Industries

This paper re-examines theories about firm capabilities, industrial co-ordination and competitive strategies in the context of Complex Product Systems (CoPS). In particular, it looks at the applicability of concepts of technological and organisational capabilities, transaction and governance cost analysis and industry lifecycle models to the performance of mature industries under conditions of technological change. It does so in the light of empirical evidence from one sector of a mature but fast-changing industry in which CoPS are currently emerging: offset lithographic print and publishing technologies—the capital goods and systems used to produce printed mass media, particularly newspapers. In this sector of the graphic arts industries, three major incumbent producer firms which were previously similar had each begun to pursue different capabilities, structures and strategies, with apparent success. The complexity of CoPS and of the organisational arrangements for their design, development and commissioning are capable of supporting a wide variety of firm capabilities, structures and strategies.     

Capabilities,Structures and Strategies Re-Examined: Incumbent Firms and the Emergence of Complex Product Systems (CoPS) in Mature Industries

This paper re-examines theories about firm capabilities, industrial co-ordination and competitive strategies in the context of Complex Product Systems (CoPS). In particular, it looks at the applicability of concepts of technological and organisational capabilities, transaction and governance cost analysis and industry lifecycle models to the performance of mature industries under conditions of technological change. It does so in the light of empirical evidence from one sector of a mature but fast-changing industry in which CoPS are currently emerging: offset lithographic print and publishing technologies—the capital goods and systems used to produce printed mass media, particularly newspapers. In this sector of the graphic arts industries, three major incumbent producer firms which were previously similar had each begun to pursue different capabilities, structures and strategies, with apparent success. The complexity of CoPS and of the organisational arrangements for their design, development and commissioning are capable of supporting a wide variety of firm capabilities, structures and strategies.     

Knowledge combinations and the survival of financial services ventures

The paper investigates the role of knowledge in the evolution of new financial services ventures in Sweden between 1990 and 2002. Drawing upon economic theories of human capital and spin-out entrepreneurship, we investigate whether knowledge from prior employment in the financial and technological industries facilitates the survival of new entrepreneurial firms. Based on a database tracking the evolution of 1,077 financial services ventures, we find that firms with more extensive knowledge from the financial services and high-tech sectors have higher chances of survival than firms with more narrow knowledge bases. Our findings offer contributions to the emerging literature on spin-out entrepreneurship and to research on entrepreneurship in services.     

When do thick venture capital markets foster innovation? An evolutionary analysis

In this paper, we examine the trade off between different effects of the availability of venture capital on the speed of technological progress in an industry. We consider an evolutionary industry simulation model based on Nelson and Winter (1982), in which R&D efforts of an incumbent firm generate technological know-how embodied in key R&D employees, who might use this know-how to found a spinoff of the incumbent. Venture capital is needed to finance a spinoff, so that the expected profits from founding a spinoff depend on how easily venture capital can be acquired. Accordingly, thick venture capital markets might have two opposing effects. First, incentives of firms to invest in R&D might be reduced and, second, if spinoff formation results in technological spillovers between the parent firm and the spinoffs, the generation of spinoff firms might positively influence the future efficiency of the incumbent’s innovation efforts. We study the manner in which this tradeoff influences the effect of venture capital on innovation expenditures, speed of technological change and evolution of industry concentration in several scenarios with different industry characteristics.     

An approach to the construction of indexes of technological change and of technological sophistication : The case of agricultural tractors

Two indicators of the output of technological innovation have been developed for the case of agricultural tractors. The tractor is a multicharacteristic product, and a fundamental problem in measuring its technological sophistication or technological change is to determine the relative weights of different characteristics. These relative weights have been approximated by the coefficients of a regression of tractor price with respect to tractor technical characteristics. The indicators developed allow one to measure technical change over time or the relative technical sophistication of different tractor models or tractor firms at a given moment. These indicators can be applied only to multicharacteristic products with easily quantifiable characteristics. However, products that satisfy these requirements account for a very large share of the market for industrial goods. These indicators can be useful in assessing the efficiency of R&D, in analyzing the influence of technological innovation on patterns of trade, and in determining the contribution of changes in the quality of capital goods employed to increases in industrial productivity.     

Adjusting to a New Technology: Experience and Training

How does the economy react to the arrival of a new major technology? The existing literature on general-purpose technologies (GPTs) has studied the role that mechanisms like secondary innovations, diffusion, and learning by firms play in the adjustment process. By contrast, we focus on a new mechanism: the interplay between technological change and two types of human capital—technology-specific experience and education. We show that technological change that requires more education and training, like computerization, necessarily produces an initial slowdown. On the other hand, technological change that lowers the training requirements, like the move from the artisan shop to the factory, can produce either a bust or a boom. We identify three key properties that determine the outcome: (1) the productivity of inexperienced workers, (2) the speed with which experience raises productivity, and (3) the level of general skills required to operate the new technology.     

不同类型的技术创新对产业国际竞争优势的影响——基于制造业面板数据的分阶段回归分析

构建线性回归模型,利用1996—2010年我国15个制造业行业的面板数据,根据消费者边际效用递减规律是否明显将样本行业分为最终消费品制造业和装备制造业,同时将研究区间划分为1996—2001年和2002—2010年两个阶段,分组、分阶段地对不同类型的技术创新(产品创新和工艺创新)对制造业国际竞争优势的影响进行实证分析。结果表明:产品开发类创新对产业国际竞争优势的巩固与保持具有显著的正向影响;性能改进类创新和工艺创新对产业国际竞争优势的影响取决于消费者边际效用变化的特点。     

Outsourcing and firm productivity: a production function approach

This paper is aimed at analyzing the relationship between outsourcing and productivity. Specifically, this paper deals with outsourcing at the firm level and focuses on the role of contracting out of manufacturing activities. I obtain new insights on this topic, mainly using a precise measure for outsourcing and analyzing differences across industries. Using an unbalanced panel of Spanish manufacturing firms, I estimate a production function depending on traditional inputs (labor, capital, and materials) and an index of production subcontracting. I find that for manufacturing as a whole, outsourcing intensity has a positive effect on productivity, showing an elasticity of output with respect to outsourcing around 0.15. When analyzing industry level results, I find that outsourcing intensity has a positive effect on productivity, mainly for firms belonging to light industries.