Innovation waves,self-organized criticality and technological convergence

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolutionary process of imitation and innovation as a process of searching in a given neighbourhood of firms. The spreading of information through neighbourhoods allows firms to acquire knowledge leading to innovation waves followed by imitation as firms attempt to glean information on best practise techniques. Whilst innovators are temporarily allowed to reap quasi rents, the imitative band wagon effect drives the profit rate down to its normal level. Productivity growth lowers the prices of sectors involved in the process of technological advance, causing obsolescence and creative destruction in a Schumpeterian sense.     

Combined forecast process: Combining scenario analysis with the technological substitution model

Forecasts can be improved by combining separate forecasts obtained by different methods. The complementary nature of the scenario analysis and technological substitution models means that combining the two can obtain improved forecasts. The former has the strength of dealing with the uncertain future, while the later offers data-based forecasts of quantifiable parameters. This study thus proposes a process for combining the scenario analysis with the technological substitution model for discussing new generation technological developments. The proposed process not only has the strengths of scenario analysis, but also contains features that scenario analysis lacks, including predicting annual developments for future years, considering old technology development, and forecasting substitution of old technologies. This study uses the forecast of the market share of Fiber to the x in Taiwan over the next ten years as an example illustrating the proposed combined forecast process.     

Innovation and Economic Growth in East Asia: An Overview

East Asia has been one of the most dynamic regions of economic growth and development. The past two decades have seen tremendous economic and technological catching up in the region. Using South Korea as a case to illustrate the process of technology catching up, we find that the process of graduating from imitation to innovation is a nonlinear one, and requires conscious efforts to invest in research and development and other technological capability‐enhancing activities. Successful technology upgrading also calls for policies and institutions that are relevant to technological innovation to evolve and adapt as an economy goes through the different stages of economic and technological development.     

Determinants for forecasting technological substitution

This paper investigates the factors determining the rate of technological substitution and evaluates the prospects for forecasting models based on market-share data only. Studies on underlying causes for the substitution of one technology or product by another reveal the frequent presence of a number of factors. These factors are first discussed in general terms so as to establish their causal relationships with the rate of substitution. On the basis of the identified cause-effect relationships, a composite model is formulated that incorporates the impact of individual factors in a combination of additive and multiplicative interactions. The relative importance and sensitivity of different factors in describing the behavior of the substitution process is then studied through a system-dynamics application of the model. Finally, using three specific cases, a comparison is given between the forecasts made by the comprehensive model, incorporating factors that are known to have significant impact on the rate of substitution, with that of a generalized model for forecasting technological substitution.     

Competition, Imitation and Growth with Step-by-Step Innovation

Is more intense product market competition and imitation good or bad for growth? This question is addressed in the context of an endogenous growth model with "step-by-step" innovations, in which technological laggards must first catch up with the leading-edge technology before battling for technological leadership in the future. In contrast to earlier Schumpeterian models in which innovations are always made by outsider firms who earn no rents if they fail to innovate and become monopolies if they do innovate, here we find: first, that the usual Schumpeterian effect of more intense product market competition (PMC) is almost always outweighed by the increased incentive for firms to innovate in order to escape competition, so that PMC has a positive effect on growth; second, that a little imitation is almost always growth-enhancing, as it promotes more frequent neck-and-neck competition, but too much imitation is unambiguously growth-reducing. The model thus points to complementary roles for competition (anti-trust) policy and patent policy.     

转型环境下创业战略与新创企业竞争优势关系研究

创新战略有利于企业构建新的价值链，模仿战略是对市场已有价值链的补充，现有研究主要关注创新战略，对模仿战略关注不足，实践中很多新创企业通过模仿战略实现创业成功。特别地，中国转型环境下制度不完善造成的不良竞争环境会制约创新战略，促进模仿战略。然而，实践中这两种战略对新创企业均存在积极影响，选择创新战略还是模仿战略事关新创企业创业成败。考察技术、市场环境和制度环境特征，剖析不同技术和市场环境下不良竞争对创新战略和模仿战略的调节作用。利用153份新创企业样本研究发现：创新战略和模仿战略均有利于竞争优势，但不同环境特征下作用效果存在差异。不良竞争对模仿战略的影响与技术、市场环境特征不相关；对创新战略的影响与技术、市场环境特征相关。创新战略和模仿战略并不存在孰优孰劣，是一定约束条件下新创企业战略决策的结果。     

外资在华技术创新溢出是否促进内资企业技术进步——基于门槛效应的经验分析

利用2010—2019年中国A股上市公司数据,构建面板门槛模型,探讨外资在华技术创新溢出对内资企业技术进步的门槛效应。结果表明,外资在华技术创新溢出自身存在单门槛效应,对内资企业技术进步的影响呈倒U型关系;以行业外资竞争、内资模仿同构和区域知识产权保护为门槛变量发现,仅当外资竞争水平较低、内资模仿同构程度较低以及区域知识产权保护力度较大时,外资在华技术创新溢出才能促进内资企业技术进步,且其阈值效应存在行业和企业产权异质性。     

Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital

We examine the contribution of human capital to economy-wide technological improvements through the two channels of innovation and imitation. We develop a theoretical model showing that skilled labor has a higher growth-enhancing effect closer to the technological frontier under the reasonable assumption that innovation is a relatively more skill-intensive activity than imitation. Also, we provide evidence in favor of this prediction using a panel dataset covering 19 OECD countries between 1960 and 2000 and explain why previous empirical research had found no positive relationship between initial schooling level and subsequent growth in rich countries.     

Dynamic Analysis of Imitation and Technology Gap

This paper investigates how imitation activities affect the technology gap between developing and developed countries using a North-South model in which the variety of goods is expanding over time. If imitation productivity is high enough, nonrivalrous ideas and inexpensive labor enables developing countries to reduce their technological backwardness by imitating products even if their initial level of technology is far behind the technology in developed countries. We also show that the rise of imitation productivity may benefit both developing and developed countries if they prefer a sufficient variety of goods.     

Generalized Lotka-Volterra equations and the mechanism of technological substitution

This paper demonstrates that if technological substitution is viewed as the result of competition between old and new technology in which new technology wins, and if generalized Lotka-Volterra equations are taken to describe this competition, then various models of technological substitution can be obtained as very special cases. It is argued that this could lead to a better understanding of the substitution process itself.     

Technological substitution forecasting with a model based on biological analogy

Although many models of technological substitution processes exist, only a few deal with multilevel technological substitution and still fewer may be easily applied to forecasting of real multilevel substitution processes. We propose a stochastic model of multilevel technological substitution and a forecasting method based on this model. In the author's opinion, the developed algorithm may be easily applied to forecasting various technological substitution processes. An example of the application of this algorithm to forecasting of world energy consumption is presented. The algorithm makes possible an investigation of the impact of future innovation on the system's behavior.     

Knowledge codification and technological innovation success: Empirical evidence from Spanish biotech companies

This paper analyzes the influence of knowledge codification on technological innovation in a sample of Spanish firms from the biotechnology sector. It tests how codification affects firms' development of incremental and radical innovations and their attempts to keep their investments exclusive by building barriers to imitation and to substitution. The work also considers the incorporation of legal protection measures. The results show, on the one hand, that knowledge codification is only beneficial for developing incremental innovations and, on the other, that firms must incorporate systems of legal protection into their codification practices if they want to keep their innovations exclusive.     

Path Dependence,Endogenous Innovation,and Growth*

The article presents a model of endogenous innovation and growth, in which technological change is path dependent. The historical pattern of technological development plays a central role in determining the pace of future technological change. Path dependence is explained using a distinction between fundamental and secondary knowledge. The economy moves endogenously between periods of drastic and nondrastic innovation. Technological lock‐in is shown to be a special case of path dependence. The model provides a rationale for cycles in technological leadership. This rationale exists in equilibria with positive levels of fundamental research and in a world with no imitation.     

Endogenous human capital formation,distance to frontier and growth

We examine human capital's contribution to economy-wide technological progress through two channels – imitation and innovation – innovation being more skill-intensive than imitation. We develop a growth model based on the endogenous ability-driven skill acquisition decision of an individual. It is shown that skilled human capital is growth enhancing in the “imitation-innovation” regime and in the “innovation-only” regime whereas unskilled human capital is growth enhancing in the “imitation-only” regime. Steady state exists and, in the long run, the economy converges to the world technology frontier. In the diversified regime, technological progress raises the return to ability and generates an increase in wage inequality between and within groups – consistent with the pattern observed across countries.     

Assessing market penetration combining scenario analysis, Delphi, and the technological substitution model: The case of the OLED TV market

The technological substitution model, proposed in 1971, was designed to analyze the penetration process of new-generation technologies replacing old ones. It was expanded in 1979 to consider more than two generations and the substitution process among various entities in the market. However, this expanded model is often limited by a relative lack of data on the latest-generation technology.On the other hand, scenario analysis, as another breed to forecasting tool, provides rich and complex portraits of possible future development of technologies. However, it fails to provide quantifiable forecasts. Therefore, previous researchers combined these two methods to analyze the development of new technologies.Nevertheless, to make forecasting more holistic, the current opinions of seasoned experts should also be taken into account. However, because of the often-diverged expert opinions, a method for consensus building, such as the Delphi method, is also necessary. Therefore, we combined the scenario analysis with the Delphi method and the technological substitution model to analyze the development of a new technology, namely, the latest-generation television (TV), or the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV. We elaborate three possible scenarios, and forecast the market share of OLED TV and four other TV technologies in the global market over the next 10 years: cathode ray tube, rear projection, plasma display panel, and liquid crystal display.     

A theory of competitive industry dynamics with innovation and imitation

Empirical evidence on industry life-cycle reveals a pattern in which innovation rates remain fairly stable or are perhaps even higher at early stages, while patenting increases sharply as the industry matures. This increase in patenting in later stages is accompanied by net exit and lower rates of output growth and price decline. In this paper, we develop a dynamic model of a competitive industry with innovation and imitation that is consistent with these stylized facts. We derive an equilibrium growth path, along which leading firms invest in increasing the stock of technological knowledge and choose not to prevent imitation by other firms as long as the industry remains relatively small. As the industry expands including new entry, the leaders' optimal amount of investment gradually declines. We show that under some rather general conditions, there would exist a scale of the industry where innovating firms would choose to start preventing free imitation, bringing further expansion of the industry through new entry to a halt and causing net exit.     

南方国家知识产权保护与南北经济收敛

文章基于南北分析框架下的内生增长模型,分析了南方知识产权保护对同时进行自主创新和国外模仿的南方国家与进行创新的北方国家的经济收敛的影响,得出了与已有国际技术扩散模型不同的结论:当南方国家相对技术水平高于临界值时,加强南方知识产权保护可促进南北经济收敛;当南方相对技术水平低于临界值时,加强南方知识产权保护则降低南方经济增长率,不利于南北经济收敛;并且南方模仿能力的提高会改变知识产权保护对南北经济收敛的影响。     

知识产权保护与我国农业技术进步的经济分析

农业技术进步是农业效益和经济增长的引擎,可以通过自主创新和模仿先进农业技术获取。通过基于扩展的内生技术进步模型,考虑了知识产权保护在鼓励模仿先进农业技术和自主创新两难中的权衡,认为知识产权保护制度对我国农业技术进步的影响主要取决于农业技术差距,并据此结论提出了相关政策建议。     

Innovation diffusion with generation substitution effects

Markets of high technology products and services, such as telecommunications, are described by fast technological changes and rapid generational substitutions. Since the conventional modeling approaches that are based on diffusion models do not usually incorporate this important aspect into their formulations, the accuracy of the provided forecasts is consequently affected. The work presented in this paper is concerned with the development of a methodology for describing innovation diffusion, in the context of generation substitution. For this purpose, a dynamic diffusion model is developed and evaluated, based on the assumption that the saturation level of the market does not remain constant throughout the diffusion process but is affected by the diffusion of its descendant generation, as soon as the latter is introduced into the market. In contradiction to the conventional diffusion models, which assume static saturation levels, the proposed approach incorporates the effects of generation substitution and develops a diffusion model with a dynamic ceiling. The importance of such an approach is especially significant for markets characterized by rapid technological and generational changes. Evaluation of the proposed methodology was performed over 2G and 3G historical data and for a number of European countries, providing quite accurate estimation and forecasting results, along with important information regarding the rate of generation substitution.