Innovation,profitability and growth over the business cycle

Recent debates about Industrial Policy are dominated by a concern to make firms more innovative. In order to make progress in assessing the magnitude of the effects of innovation on corporate performance, one needs to know how such effects occur. We have contrasted two views of the effect of innovation—the product view and the process view—and have provided some evidence to suggest that both effects are evident in the data. Although it is clear that individual innovations themselves have a positive effect on profitability and growth, it is equally clear that the process of innovation seems to transform firms in some way that gives rise to what look like generic differences between innovators and non-innovators. As a consequence, the process by which profitability and growth are generated differs noticeably between the two types of firms. Perhaps the clearest of these differences is that innovating firms seem to be much less sensitive to cyclical shocks than non-innovating firms are.We are obliged to the ESRC for support. Some of the work discussed here draws upon joint work with John Van Reenan, and we are obliged to him for his assistance and helpful comments. Jonathan Haskel also provided very helpful comments on an early draft of the paper. We are also obliged to seminar audiences at the University of Ulster, the University of Manchester, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, NERA, UMIST, University College London, the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE and the Industrial Organization Conference held at Vienna, June 24–26, 1992, for many stimulating observations. However, the usual disclaimer applies.     

Growing Silicon Valley on a landscape: an agent-based approach to high-tech industrial clusters

We propose a Nelson-Winter model with an explicitly defined landscape to study the formation of high-tech industrial clusters such as those in Silicon Valley. The existing literature treats clusters as the result of location choices and focuses on how firms may benefit from locating in a cluster. We deviate from this tradition by emphasizing that high-tech industrial clusters are characterized by concentrated entrepreneurship. We argue that the emergence of clusters can be explained by the social effect through which the appearance of one or a few entrepreneurs inspire many followers locally. Agent-based simulation is employed to show the dynamics of the model. Data from the simulation and the properties of the model are discussed in light of empirical regularities. Variations of the model are simulated to study policies that are favorable to the high-tech economy.JEL Classification: L11, R12This paper has been presented at the 9th International Schumpeter Society Conference in Gainesville, Florida, the Western Economic Associations 77th Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington, the 24th Annual Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Dallas, Texas, and the Workshop on Industry and Labor Dynamics: The Agent-Based Computational Economics Approach in Turin, Italy. I would like to thank Rob Axtell, Giovanni Dosi, Olav Sorenson, and an anonymous referee for their comments, suggestions, and encouragement. I am grateful to Nikesh Patel for his superb assistance.     

Concavity assumptions in regulatory models and the capital waste controversy

Sherman (1992, 197) concludes that the wasteful use of capital [by a rate-of-return constrained monopolist] is motivated to avoid an inelastic region of demand. Previous analyses of capital waste by regulated firms often employ models with concavity restrictions on the profit and production functions. Here we demonstrate that these conventional assumptions in Averch-Johnson type models require demand to be everywhere elastic, ruling out the avoidance motive emphasized by Sherman. Although these highly restrictive assumptions are suitable for studying inefficient input mix, they are inappropriate when considering investment in unproductive capital.This note is based on the appendix to my doctoral dissertation completed at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and supervised by John W. Mayo. Useful comments were also made by Ross Eriksson of The University of Tennessee, David Kaserman of Auburn University, David Mandy of the University of Missouri, and an anonymous referee. All conclusions and opinions expressed herein are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI) or any organization associated with NRRI.     

Stationary measures for some Markov chain models in ecology and economics

Summary. Let continuous, exists in for x in . Let be an i.i.d. sequence from F and X₀ be a nonnegative random variable independent of . Let be the Markov chain generated by the iteration of random maps by . Such Markov chains arise in population ecology and growth models in economics. This paper studies the existence of nondegenerate stationary measures for {X_n}. A set of necessary conditions and two sets of sufficient conditions are provided. There are some convergence results also. The present paper is a generalization of the work on random logistics maps by Athreya and Dai (2000).Received: 20 March 2002, Revised: 4 December 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: C22, D9.The author wishes to thank Professor Mukul Majumdar and the referees for several useful suggestions.     

Bounded rationality in laboratory bargaining with asymmetric information

Summary. This paper reports an experiment on two-player sequential bargaining with asymmetric information that features some forces present in multi-round monopoly pricing environments. Buyer-seller pairs play a series of bargaining games that last for either one or two rounds of offers. The treatment variable is the probability of continuing into a second round. Equilibrium predictions do a poor job of explaining levels of prices and treatment effects. As an alternative to the conventional equilibrium model, we consider models that allow for bounded rationality of subjects. The quantal response equilibrium model captures some of the important features of the results.Received: 30 April 2003, Revised: 10 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C78, D82, D42, C91. Correspondence to: Timothy N. CasonThis research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (SBR-9809110). The experiments were run at the Economic Science Laboratory of the University of Arizona and the Krannert Laboratory for Experimental Economic Research at Purdue University, using the z-Tree software developed at the Institute for Empirical Research at the University of Zurich (Fischbacher [8]). David Cooper, Rachel Croson, Charles Noussair, an anonymous referee, and conference participants at the Economic Science Association and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory meetings provided helpful comments. Timothy ONeill Dang, Thomas Wilkening and Marikah Mancini provided expert research assistance.     

Efficiency measurement using a latent class stochastic frontier model

Efficiency estimation in stochastic frontier models typically assumes that the underlying production technology is the same for all firms. There might, however, be unobserved differences in technologies that might be inappropriately labeled as inefficiency if such variations in technology are not taken into account. We address this issue by estimating a latent class stochastic frontier model in a panel data framework. An application of the model is presented using Spanish banking data. Our results show that bank-heterogeneity can be fully controlled when a model with four classes is estimated. This paper was written during Luis Oreas visit to Binghamton University in the summer of 2002. We would like to thank an associate editor of the journal and two anonymous referees for their detailed comments. However, we alone are responsible for any remaining errors.     

Symmetric Cournot oligopoly and economic welfare: a synthesis

Summary Recently, Mankiw-Whinston (1986) and Suzumura-Kiyono (1987) have shown that socially excessive firm entry occurs in unregulated oligopoly. This paper extends this excess entry results by looking into strategic aspects of costreducing R&D investment that creates incentives towards socially excessive investments. In the first stage, firms decide whether or not to enter the market. In the second stage, firms make a commitment to cost-reducing R&D investment. In the third stage, firms compete in output quantities. It is shown that the excess entry holds even in the presence of strategic commitments.This is the synthesized version of the two earlier papers, Okuno-Fujiwara and Suzumura (1988) and Suzumura (1991). We are grateful to Professors J. Brander, D. Cass, M. Majumdar, A. Postlewaite, J. Richmond, A. Sandmo, B. Spencer and J. Vickers for their helpful comments and discussions on earlier drafts. Needless to say, they should not be held responsible for any remaining defects. Financial supports from the Japan Center for Economic Research, Tokyo Center for Economic Research, the Japanese Ministry of Education, and the Institute for Monetary and Economic Research, the Bank of Japan are gratefully acknowledged.     

Exploring the relationship between university and innovation: evidence from the Italian food industry

This study provides empirical evidence on the role of universities’ technological transfer (TT) activities in the Italian manufacturing sector, with particular attention to the food industry. Using the UniCredit-Capitalia database (2008 UniCredit-Capitalia. 2008. Decima Indagine Sulle Imprese Manifatturiere Italiane. Rapporto Corporate. [Google Scholar]) for firms and data from the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) to obtain the university TT indicator, we estimate a probit model to assess the effect of universities’ TT activities on a firm’s likelihood to innovate. The role of proximity in knowledge spillovers from TT activities is also investigated. Results show that university TT activities seem to stimulate food industry firms innovation and the impact appears significantly higher than for the manufacturing sector. Moreover, the effect of TT activities on innovation appears to be geographically bounded. As regards policy implications, this study provides two insights which may help promote innovation in the food sector. First, the factors that influence innovative capability in the food sector are different from those in other sectors, suggesting the need for sector specific instruments for promoting innovation. Second, science is important in the food industry and this raises questions about the policy of mainly considering high-tech industries when promoting a closer relationship between firms and universities.     

Employment and wages with sector-specific shocks and worker moral hazard

We study a model of worker moral hazard with identical workers and where sectoral prices are subject to stochastic shocks. When firms are short-run maximizers, employment is shown to be distorted downward relative to the case of certain prices, and more so the higher is the current price. This implies that employment is relatively insensitive to sectoral output-price changes, and that average employment and output are reduced when price volatility increases. When firms can commit to future employment levels, employment is greater in low-demand states (implying labor hoarding), and thus even less sensitive to shocks, while average employment is less distorted downward by uncertainty. The model gives a new explanation of how increased sector-specific volatility can lead to output losses, and of the possibility of negative comovements of unemployment and turnover.     

Modelling Exogenous Variables in Human Capital Formation through a Heteroscedastic Stochastic Frontier

The objective of this paper is to suggest the use of a stochastic frontier model in which the inefficiency component is heteroscedastic in the measurement of technical efficiency in Human Capital Formation in the Italian University System. The heteroscedastic frontier model enables one to consider the effect of students’ individual characteristics and the influences of the resources and organization of the specific faculty on efficiency. The suggested model is applied to the case of Florence University graduates. The results show that the model specification is strongly supported by the data. Moreover, the suggested specification explains variation in technical efficiency in terms of graduate-specific factors. The technical efficiency scores obtained are comparable across faculties.

The nature of the steady state in models of optimal growth under uncertainty

Summary. We study a one-sector stochastic optimal growth model with a representative agent. Utility is logarithmic and the production function is of the Cobb-Douglas form with capital exponent . Production is affected by a multiplicative shock taking one of two values with positive probabilities p and 1-p. It is well known that for this economy, optimal paths converge to a unique steady state, which is an invariant distribution. We are concerned with properties of this distribution. By using the theory of Iterated Function Systems, we are able to characterize such a distribution in terms of singularity versus absolute continuity as parameters and p change. We establish mutual singularity of the invariant distributions as p varies between 0 and 1 whenever . More delicate is the case . Singularity with respect to Lebesgue measure also appears for values such that . For and Peres and Solomyak (1998) have shown that the distribution is a.e. absolutely continuous. Characterization of the invariant distribution in the remaining cases is still an open question. The entire analysis is summarized through a bifurcation diagram, drawn in terms of pairs .Received: 9 April 2002, Revised: 29 October 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: C61, O41.Correspondence to: Tapan MitraThis research was partially supported by CNR (Italy) under the "Short-term mobility" program and by M.U.R.S.T. (Italy) National Group on "Nonlinear Dynamics and Stochastic Models in Economics and Finance" . We are indebted to Rabi Bhattacharya for providing us with the reference to Solomyak's (1995) paper. The present version has benefitted from comments by Mukul Majumdar and two anonymous referees.     

Optimal learning with costly adjustment

Summary We formulate an infinite-horizon Bayesian learning model in which the planner faces a cost from switching actions that does not approach zero as the size of the change vanishes. We recast the model as a dynamic programming problem which will always have a continuous value function and an optimal policy. We show that the planner's beliefs will converge eventually to some stochastic limit belief which, however, is not necessarily a point mass on the truth. The planner's actions will also converge, although not necessarily to an optimal action given the truth. A key implication of adjustment costs is that the planner will change her action only finitely many times. We present a simple example illustrating how adjustment costs can lead the planner to settle in the long run on an action that is far away from the optimal action given the truth and which yields a reward significantly below that of the optimal action.We would like to thank seminar and conference participants at Brown University, the Social Science Research Council Workshop on Soviet and East European Economics in Pittsburgh, the Econometric Society in Philadelphia, and the Society for Economic Dynamics and Control in Montreal. The bulk of this work was done while Mark Feldman was at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.     

Spieltheorie: Ein neues Paradigma der Sozialwissenschaft

Ohne ZusammenfassungDeutsche Fassung des Artikels Game Theory: A New Paradigm of Social Science, erschienen in New Methods of Thought and Procedure (Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer, 1967). — Diese Arbeit wurde teilweise über das Econometric Research Program der Princeton University durch das Office of Naval Research unterstützt.     

Technological change and institutional inertia: a game-theoretic approach

In this paper, we study a co-evolutionary model of economic change at two hierarchical levels. At the lower level, institutions are given and the focus is on how resources are allocated and innovation produced in response to the pay-off structure induced by prevailing institutions. At the higher level, it is the institutions themselves that change as the outcome of a process of social bargaining. The main objective of the paper is to study the interaction between these two levels of change, attempting to provide some insight on issues like technological/institutional divergence, technological dead-end, institutional inertia, etc.It appears that evolutionary economics must be the theory of a process of cultural growth as determined by the economic interest, a theory of a cumulative sequence of economic institutions stated in the terms of the process itself. Thorstein Veblen (1898, p. 393).This work was undertaken while the author was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.     

Policy matters. The long run effects of aggregate demand and mark-up shocks on the Italian unemployment rate

This paper estimates a VAR including labor productivity, real wage and unemployment rate, to identify the dynamic effects of technology, demand, and mark-up shocks, respectively, on the Italian labor market. Identification is achieved by imposing recursive restrictions on the matrix of long run multipliers. Our results show that both mark up and aggregate demand shocks permanently reduce the unemployment rate. Finally, technology shocks do not significantly affect the unemployment rate in the long run. These findings convey important policy implications: expansionary aggregate demand and deregulation policies reducing the mark up permanently decrease the Italian unemployment rate.Jel classification: C32, E32, J29This paper has been produced as part of a CEPR Research Network on New Approaches to the Study of Economic Fluctuations. We would like to thank Marcello DAmato, Mario Forni, Marco Lippi and Antonio Ribba for useful comments. We are also grateful to Bernd Sussmuth for pointing out to us several significant improvements to the paper.First version received: November 2001/Final version received: October 2002     

The R&D system for industrial development in Taiwan

The research and development (R&D) system for industrial development in Taiwan is made up of three parts: industrial firms, government-supported institutes (GSIs), and academic institutes and universities. The Taiwanese experience showed that the effective interaction of the GSIs and the industrial firms has successfully supported the development of its industry. The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) played the key role in industrial development during recent decades. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of ITRI and the way in which it fulfills its role through an examination of its major tasks. The implications for developing countries are also discussed.     

Determinants of new-firm startups in Italy

The purpose of this paper is to apply a modified version of the income choice model to explain variations in new-firm formation across Italian provinces over the period 1985–1988. Based on a panel data of startup activity in 78 Italian provinces and using two different data bases, we find support for the overall theory of income choice where individuals choose between earning wages from an incumbent enterprise or else profits from starting a new firm. In particular, the evidence suggests that labor market conditions such as wages and the relative impact of labor dislocation, profits, and environmental factors such as the degree to which entrepreneurial networks already exist, shape the degree to which new firms are started.     

Maturity and volatility effects on UK smiles

The smile effect is a result of an empirical observation of the options implied volatility with the same expiration date, across different exercise prices. However, its shape has been under discussion seeming to be dependent on the option underlying security. In this paper, and filling up a scarce empirical research on the topic, we used liquid equity options on 9 stocks traded on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) between August 1990 and December 1991. We tested two different hypothesis for testing two different phenomena: (1) the increase of the smile as maturity approaches; (2) and the association between the smile and the volatility of the underlying stock. In order to estimate implied volatilities for unavailable exercise prices, we modelled the smile using cubic B-spline curves. We found empirical support for the smile intensification (the U-shape is more pronounced) as maturity approaches as well as when volatility rises. However, we found two major sources of disagreement with the literature on stochastic volatility models. First, as maturity approaches, out-of-the-money options implied volatility tends to be higher than the implied volatility of in-the-money options. Second, as the volatility of the underlying asset increases, the implied volatility of in-the-money options tends to be higher than implied volatility of out-of-the-money options.Received: September 2001, Accepted: September 2003, JEL Classification: G13Correspondence to: João L. C. DuqueWe thank Professor Dean A. Paxson (University of Manchester), António Sousa Câmara (University of Strathclyde), Ser-Huang Poon (University of Lancaster) and the attendees of the 26th EFA Annual Conference for helpful comments on previous versions of this paper. We also want to thank to two anonymous referees for their relevant comments and suggestions. Financial support granted by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and the Programa Praxis XXI is gratefully acknowledged.     

On a mixed competitive-monopolistic macrodynamic model in a monetary economy

In this paper we reconsider the dynamic stability of the mixed competitive-monopolistic system in an analytical framework of the macroeconomic growth model in a monetary economy. We construct a simple monetary growth model in the so-called Keynes-Wicksell tradition and investigate how the degree of competition affects the dynamic stability of the system. Our analysis reveals the destabilizing rather than the stabilizing forces of the monopolistic system in amonetary economy contrary to the usual analyses. We also show that the system produces the purely cyclical behavior at some intermediate degrees of competition by using the Hopf-Bifurcation theorem.This paper was written while the author was staying at the New School for Social Research in New York as a visiting research scholar. Special thanks are due to Prof. Willi Semmler for providing the comfortable research environment and to Komazawa University for the financial support. The author is also grateful to Dr. Reiner Franke and two anonymous referees of this journal for their constructive comments and helpful suggestions. Needless to say, however, only the author is responsible for possible remaining errors.