Optimal combination of innovation and environmental policies under technology licensing

Under what conditions will a carbon tax encourage environmental innovation? Can a regulator design an optimal environmental policy to reduce emissions and to promote clean technologies? This paper studies optimal environmental policy in the situation where a monopoly innovator develops and licenses clean production technologies to downstream polluting firms. We find that (i) a higher emission tax will encourage innovation when the burden of the tax payment in the polluters' costs and/or the price-elasticity of the demand for polluting goods are small, (ii) the innovation-inducing effects of emission tax are inversely related to the emission-reduction (Pigouvian) effects of the tax, and (iii) the social optimum can be achieved by the mix of tax and subsidy. We also show that if the policy instrument is limited to the tax, the second-best tax rate would lie between the marginal damage and the first-best rate. By performing numerical simulations, we also demonstrate that the optimal mix of the emission tax and R&D subsidy can have “double dividend” benefits.     

国际技术转移与我国技术创新

在经济全球化、一体化的背景下,跨国公司作为国际技术转移主体的作用正在不断增强,FDI的流入的确推动了我国的经济进步,但跨国公司为了维持其在某些领域的垄断地位,还会千方百计地阻挠这种技术的转移和扩散,加上我国自身的经济结构和体制的障碍及吸收学习能力的有限,技术转移的效应可能达不到理想的理论水平.因此,既要注重跨国公司的技术转移,又不能忽视我国的技术创新,这是实现经济可持续增长的根本所在.     

Contracting for tacit knowledge: the provision of technical services in technology licensing contracts

Recent research on the economic payoff from new technology has emphasized the importance of tacit knowledge or know-how. This paper shows that arm's length contract can overcome the problems in contracting for know-how by bundling complementary inputs with know-how in a technology package, and leveraging the superior enforceability of contracts over the latter. In the empirical part of this paper, the relationship between bundling and transfer of know-how is analyzed, using Indian data. The results imply that tied sales of inputs may increase the efficiency of contracts involving the transfer of know-how. A striking result, in the context of the current North-South debates on intellectual property rights, is the packaging of patents with know-how.     

Differentiation of innovation strategies based on pharmaceutical licensing agreements: Insight from Korean pharmaceutical firms

The paper aims to show how licensing behaviour can be used to differentiate distinct innovation strategies. Information on in-licensing and out-licensing agreements is used to guide the development of a framework that details the licensing firm’s relational preference for internal and external orientation. Using firm-level data of the Korean pharmaceutical firms, the study categorised the distinct strategic orientations of firms based on the proposed matrix model. The results indicated that firms with higher R&D (research and development) expenditures have a tendency to greater external exploitation of technological knowledge than firms with low R&D spending. The study provides potential avenues for targeting of licensing partners from the perspective of firms seeking to in-license or out-license their innovations.     

The innovation and economic consequences of knowledge spillovers: fit between exploration and exploitation capabilities,knowledge attributes,and transfer mechanisms

The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating roles of the attributes and transfer mechanisms of knowledge in the relationship between organisational capabilities and innovation and economic performance. Regression analysis on a sample of 120 Taiwanese firms was used to test our model. The findings suggest that the organisational capabilities of exploration and exploitation are positively related to innovation and economic performance. The effect of exploration on performance is positively moderated by tacit knowledge and adaptation knowledge transfer mechanisms. In contrast, exploitation is a stronger predictor of performance when organisations acquire well-defined knowledge and use replication knowledge transfer mechanisms.     

A competitive general equilibrium model of technology transfer,innovation, and obsolescence

A general equilibrium production model is developed where technologies are embodied in capital goods of different vintages indexed in a continuum. A difference in the extent of existing knowledge determines a wage gap between a developed (north) and a developing region (south). With free flow of technology, relatively backward technologies move to the south. With innovation in the north, a technology cycle is created by which some of the technologies are pushed out of the north into the south. This also tends to widen the wage gap between the regions.     

Science,innovation, and public services: editorial introduction

ABSTRACT

The quality of public services is critically influenced by innovation and, ultimately, by advances in basic research, which however embeds the feature of a global public good. Two broad issues emerge. The first concerns the evaluation of the socio-economic impact of science. What are the benefits and spillovers that R&D investments, research infrastructures and big science can bring to society? The second concerns which type of institutions and policies are most suitable for supporting R&D activities. These topics discussed in this article represent the core of the special issue “Innovation and Public Services: from the lab to enterprises and citizens”     

德国支持企业私营部门研发创新促进产学研合作的政策措施

作为世界公认的创新型国家之一,德国联邦政府构建了具有自身特色的企业为主体、产学研密切结合的国家创新体系,形成了一系列行之有效的促进“经济与科技结合”的政策措施.各类企业已成为德国研发创新活动的主体,是研发创新投入的主要力量.围绕德国联邦政府支持企业私营部门研发创新及促进产学研合作相关政策开展了综合研究,并对其主要内容和特色进行了归纳总结.     

基于熵理论的供应链企业知识创新研究

运用热力学中熵理论的基本原理,研究了知识熵与知识的负熵效应,构造了知识熵的数学模型,分析了企业的知识创新机理,为供应链知识创新管理提供了一种有效的管理思路和方法。     

Linking technology innovation strategy,intellectual capital and technology innovation performance in manufacturing SMEs

The research interest on Intellectual Capital (IC) has been increasing, adopting different definitions and developing diverse measurement tools. Nonetheless, little research focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the relation between IC and innovation management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of technology innovation strategy on the IC development and then on innovation performance in manufacturing SMEs. After conducting a survey, measures of IC for SMEs have been performed and an integrated structural equation model has been created. Results demonstrate that technology innovation strategy affects all IC components, the internal structural capital supports the relational and human capital, and the latter two influence firm technology innovation performance. This study contributes to developing an IC measurement system in SMEs and to emphasise the importance of single IC components in improving technology innovation performance.     

Proximity, knowledge integration and innovation: an agenda for agent-based studies

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model able to capture some of the main features that govern knowledge sharing and innovation. We pursue our target developing an agent-based model in which the social network of interactions is specified as a knowledge resource, and knowledge integration is seen as the process by which the resource can be applied to innovation. The results of the simulation exercises show that the initial architecture of acquaintance networks is a crucial factor for innovation. Innovating has proven to be more than simply equating endowments of initial skills with firm performance. In fact, the performance of the system showed high sensitivity to the arrangement of the firm’s initial location in the social network. Moreover, the way in which acquaintance networks were mobilized emerged as a key determinant of innovation patterns. The model presented here is a relatively theoretical, stylized model and we employ it to draw some general, albeit preliminary conclusions, while illustrating some of the theory relevant to the issues discussed. It is argued that the model might serve the purpose of setting an agenda for further research along this line of investigation—that is, knowledge integration patterns and firms partnerships formation.     

CO2 emissions, research and technology transfer in China

Although the economy of China has grown very strongly over the last few decades, this spectacular performance has come at the expense of rapid environmental deterioration. Amidst animated debate on the issue of global warming, this study attempts to explore the determinants of CO₂ emissions in China using aggregate data for more than half a century. Adopting an analytical framework that combines the environmental literature with modern endogenous growth theories, the results indicate that CO₂ emissions in China are negatively related to research intensity, technology transfer and the absorptive capacity of the economy to assimilate foreign technology. Our findings also indicate that more energy use, higher income and greater trade openness tend to cause more CO₂ emissions.     

基于产业链的自主创新的政策支撑体系研究

科技和创新是经济发展的关键,建设创新型国家是提升国家竞争力的重大战略决策.本文以产业经济学、创新管理理论为指导,在梳理各项自主创新政策在产业链上的作用机理后进行了实证,得出政府应在构建产业创新系统的基础上选择重点产业、根据上下游关系制定相关政策、加大对产业链上关键技术和核心技术政策支持力度、以重大产品开发为龙头带动整体自主创新的政策建议.     

Technological diversity,knowledge flow and capacity,and industrial innovation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the effect of technological diversity, knowledge flow and capacity on industrial innovation performance. We suggest that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between technological diversity and industrial innovation performance. Moreover, knowledge flow and knowledge capacity are hypothesised as negatively moderating the effect of technological diversity on industrial innovation performance. We use negative binomial regression to test the hypotheses in a panel data of 360 industry-year cases and the findings support our prediction. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Cognitive skills,innovation and technology diffusion

This article presents new international estimates of human capital for the period 1970–2003. The new latent index is used to re-examine the Benhabib and Spiegel (2005) model of technology diffusion in a horse-race with the competing indicators of Barro and Lee (2010) and Hanushek and Wößmann (2009). Analysis employs cross-section and panel econometrics, extends beyond the Cobb–Douglas technology, and deals with endogeneity bias. Robust evidence confirms the significance of cognitive skills as a driver of innovation and diffusion. Although there is substantial diversity, the new human capital index has declined in many countries in Africa and the OECD.     

Information,innovation and diffusion of technology

The paper presents an infinite horizon model of innovation and diffusion incorporating features from recent advances in evolutionary economics. A stochastic variant is explored which posits that technological knowledge is costly to obtain, requiring resource expenditure. There are heterogeneous agents: optimizing as well as non-optimizing agents. The optimizing agents incur an innovation cost. The return from inventive investment is random. The non-optimizing agents, operating existing technologies, behave solely adaptively. Cross-effects between those two types of agents give rise to the multiple equilibria, path-dependence, diversity of diffusion processes and a coexistence of different technologies. Some policy conclusions are drawn in the last section.     

Agglomeration, innovation and international research mobility

This paper discusses a model of the New Economic Geography, in which the seminal core-periphery model of Krugman [Krugman, P., 1991, Increasing returns and economic geography, Journal of Political Economy 99, 483–499.] is extended by endogenous research activities. Beyond the common ‘anonymous’ consideration of R&D expenditures within fixed costs, this model introduces in an analytically tractable approach vertical product differentiation in combination with a de-integrated R&D sector. In the context of international factor mobility, the destabilizing effects of a mobile scientific workforce are analyzed. Based upon a simple welfare analysis, a consideration of R&D promoting policy instruments and their spatial implications, this paper makes a contribution to the brain-drain debate.