From Industrial Policy to Innovation Policy: Japan's Pursuit of Competitive Advantage*

Japan faces significant challenges in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. Attempts to formally model past industrial policy interventions uniformly uncover little, if any, positive impact on productivity, growth, or welfare. The evidence indicates that most resource flows went to large, politically influential “backwards” sectors, suggesting that political economy considerations may be central to the apparent ineffectiveness of Japanese industrial policy. Rather than traditional industrial or science and technology policy, financial and labor market reforms appear more promising. As a group, Japan's industrial firms are competitive relative to their foreign counterparts. Where Japan falls behind is in the heavily regulated service sector. The problems appear to be due less to a lack of industrial policy than to an excess of regulation. Japan may have more to gain through restructuring the lagging service sector than by expending resources in pursuit of marginal gains in the industrial sector.     

How does technological innovation and diffusion affect inter-industry workers’ mobility?

Does technological change amount to accumulation of general, and so transferable, human capital? To approach this question I rely on a theoretical framework in which the “technology distance” between industries reduces inter-industry transferability of workers’ skill. Empirically, I use US panel data on individual intra-industry and inter-industry mobility decisions between 1982 and 1990, a period of rapid technological change in all manufacturing sectors, to estimate a mixed logit econometric specification that does not rely on the IIA assumption. I find support to the main idea that technological innovation and diffusion have different effects on workers’ industrial mobility patterns. “Knowledge spillovers”, differently from “rent spillovers”, indeed boost the chances of workers’ inter-industry mobility. Surprisingly, this is more consistently so in low-tech industries than in high-tech industries. Consistently with the expectations developed in the theoretical framework, in low-tech industries skilled workers respond more sharply to technology diffusion than unskilled workers.     

An innovation index based on factor analysis

Factor analysis techniques are applied to develop an innovation index which indicates the relative tendency of various industrial sectors to innovate. The index is derived from various input variables which reflect the extent to which resources are allocated to achieve innovation and output variables which measure the extent to which new product and process innovation is achieved. In constructing the innovation index, each of the variables is weighted in accordance to its involvement in factor patterns which best reproduce correlations in the set of statistics. The innovation index is applied to rank-order various industrial sector and changes in innovation characteristics over time are indicated by index values determined for 1960, 1963 and 1970. Relationships are established between values of the innovation index and interindustry differences in the dynamics of the development of markets created through technological innovation. Application of these relationships for projecting the rate at which markets will develop for new technological innovations is discussed.     

Paternalistic Capitalism

Brazil’s political-economic structure has rapidly evolved over the past decade, shedding its shallow policy alignment with neoliberalism of the 1990s. Brazil’s large, diversified industrial base was painfully constructed over the course of the twentieth century. A major and sustained political realignment, which began in 2003, has resulted in two essential thrusts in development policy: (i) a “growth with equity” strategy that has dramatically reduced poverty and inequality; and (ii) a state-led “industrial policy” designed to upgrade manufacturing and direct the accumulation process toward specific sectors, highlighting and consolidating the National Innovation System (NIS). Nonetheless, as a result of the commodity boom that swept through Latin America, Brazil’s natural resource sector achieved outsized growth from 2002 to 2012. One result has been a shift toward resource intensive activities and a broad opening to low-cost Chinese manufactures. Utilizing an institutionalist framework and method, this article analyzes the cohesion of the NIS and the emergence of the “deindustrialization” debate. Also, it assesses the instrumental nature of the “growth with equity” strategy. The article hypothesizes the viability of an endogenous “neo-developmentalist” strategy, while acknowledging the emergence of fundamental exogenous forces and structural ceremonial/institutional factors that have impeded the consolidation of a Brazilian social structure of accumulation.     

Evolutionary targeting for inclusive development

Many studies articulate a theoretical conceptual change—that is, a change from neo-classical economics and “Picking Winners” policy frameworks to a systemic-evolutionary targeting framework. Within such an intellectual context, this paper attempts to expand the evolutionary targeting framework to facilitate the process of inclusive industrial development. We present a unitary industrial development trajectory which is used as a narrative to articulate the evolutionary paths of Taiwan and Malaysia in making their respective sectoral changes (from informal to formal, and then to high technology sectors) endogenous. Building on both cases, we elucidate how the organization of subsistence farming contributes to development, and hence paves the way for new industrial takeoff. In this regard, the targeting programs that focus on the Schumpeterian segment are improved upon to offer support for (re)organization of the informal sector. This study, therefore, proposes a new analytical grid theorizing the current observations in inclusive development studies. It thus explicitly acknowledges the importance of transforming the informal sector to achieve inclusive development.     

Tolerance for uncertainty and the growth of informationally opaque industries

Hofstede's [Hofstede, Geert H. 1980. Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.] cross-country psychological survey of IBM employees finds that some countries (societies) are systematically less tolerant of uncertainty, while uncertainty-tolerance is shown by some theoretic models to be essential to the growth of emerging sectors about which less is known. This paper first uses Durnev, Morck, and Yeung's [Durnev, Art, Morck, Randall, and Yeung, Bernard. 2004. Value-enhancing capital budgeting and firm-specific stock return variation. The Journal of Finance. 59(1): 65–105.] methodology to identify these informationally opaque industries. The hypothesis is then made that countries characterized by high uncertainty aversion (measured by Hofstede's indicator, and two other alternative indicators) will grow disproportionately slower in industrial sectors where information is less available. Using the Rajan and Zingales [Rajan, Raghuram G. and Zingales, Luigi. 1998. Financial Dependence and Growth. American Economic Review. Vol. 88(3): 559–586.] “difference-in-differences” methodology, which is relatively free from the endogeneity problem, the study provides robust evidence of such an industrial growth pattern in 34 countries and 36 manufacturing industries. It also shows that national uncertainty aversion is not driven by underdevelopment of financial sector, inadaptability of civil law systems, lower level of economic or human capital development, labor market inflexibility, or any of many other institutional factors. The results remain robust when religious (Catholic vs. Protestant) composition is used as an instrumental variable for national uncertainty aversion. The international evidence presented helps explain why some countries are slower in embracing “new” (vs. traditional) industries.     

再论产业化创新：科技创新和产业创新的衔接*

基于科技创新与产业创新的关系以及两者脱节的现状,有必要提出并强化产业化创新的概念。产业化创新介于科技创新和产业创新之间,是两者的桥梁。产业化创新不只是一个概念,更是一种机制,是一种合力。产业化创新有两种方式：产学研协同创新和科技创业。产学研协同创新的内涵,不是企业、大学和研究机构之间的机构意义的协同,而是产业发展、新技术、新产业人才的培养和研发新技术的功能协同。激励产业化创新的机制不只是激励创新,还要激励协同。科技创业是越过了孵化和研发新技术阶段,通过创办企业的方式进行产业化。科技创业的资本是以科技创新成果体现的知识资本、以创业家体现的人力资本和以风险投资体现的物质资本的集合。知识资本和人力资本对创业起着决定性作用,尽管物质资本不可或缺。创新成果产业化涉及两个方面：一是采用新技术的产业迅速达到规模;二是充分实现新技术的潜在价值。这两个方面都依赖于有效的商业模式创新。     

Human capital,employment protection and growth in Europe

Using data for a large sample of manufacturing and service sectors in 14 EU countries, this paper shows that the value added and TFP growth rate differential between high and low human capital intensive industries is greater in countries with low than countries with high levels of employment protection legislation. We also find that such negative effect of EPL is slightly stronger for countries near the technology frontier, in the manufacturing sector and after the 1990s. We interpret these results suggesting that technology adoption depends on the skill level of the workforce and on the capacity of firms to adjust employment as technology changes: therefore, firing costs have a stronger impact in sectors where technical change is more skill-biased and technology adoption more important.     

Innovation and the competitiveness of industries: Comparing the mainstream and the evolutionary approaches

The study of the relationships between innovation and the competitiveness of industries is an important topic for both, academic research and economic policy. The huge economics literature flourished in the last couple of decades on the subject broadly falls into two distinct research traditions, namely the mainstream R&D spillovers approach and the evolutionary economics view. Both traditions agree on the important role played by innovation and the inter-sectoral diffusion of advanced knowledge for the competitive performance of industrial sectors. Behind this general agreement, however, the two approaches are radically different. This paper shows that, at a deeper level of analysis, the mainstream and evolutionary views do indeed differ with respect to their theoretical foundations, empirical research and policy implications. In a nutshell, while the mainstream R&D spillover approach is inspired by a traditional view of economic policy based on a market-oriented approach, the evolutionary view is on the contrary consistent with the idea that institutional arrangements and policy interventions do indeed play a fundamental role for shaping innovation patterns and their impacts on the competitiveness of industries.     

中国制造业转型升级与新微笑曲线理论

鉴于中国制造业转型升级支持理论的不足,将科技水平变量引入传统微笑曲线模型,发现传统微笑曲线理论和倒微笑曲线理论仅描述了产业链附加值分布图的一部分,只有两者结合才能构成完整的微笑曲线理论,即新微笑曲线理论。此外,基于新微笑曲线理论,提出对中国制造业转型升级的3个重要启示：①无论选择哪一条转型升级路径,加大科技投入、进行科技创新及提升科技水平均是中国制造业实现转型升级的根本路径;②价值链高端和低端的划分实际上是一个动态变化的概念,只要加大生产制造环节的科技投入,积极进行科技创新,大幅提升其科技水平,在一定条件下,产业链生产制造环节也能处于价值链高端;③对于当前大多数中国制造企业而言,其转型升级路径是直接在生产制造环节进行转型升级而非沿着产业链向两端攀升。     

Diversity in innovation and productivity in Europe

The diversity in innovation patterns across manufacturing and service industries and in their outcomes in terms of hourly labor productivity are investigated in this article considering six European countries. The Schumpeterian insights into the variety of innovation are developed in this work by identifying different innovation–performance relationships for industries and countries, relying either on the dominant role of product innovation, or on the diffusion of process improvements. Moreover, the “push” effect of innovation is combined with the “pull” effect of demand, by considering the impact of the dynamics of consumption and investment at the sectoral level. The results point out a “North-South” divide across EU countries, with the three countries of Northern Europe closely associated to the model of productivity growth based on product innovation, and the three Southern countries, mainly relying on the mechanisms by which process innovation is at the root of productivity improvements.     

“高校—企业”技术转移对企业创新绩效的影响——来自经验取样法的证据

为探讨现代企业与高校之间技术转移对企业创新绩效的影响,立足我国高科技上市公司,以经验取样法为研究范式,以高管与高校之间技术转移体验及创新成效为对象,展开连续15周日记研究,结果发现：“高校—企业”技术转移会积极影响企业创新绩效,规划性博弈与功利性博弈具有中介作用,技术吸收能力具有调节作用。由此证明,在“高校—企业”技术转移合作中,企业技术吸收能力水平在历经组织间博弈后,将显著调节由技术转化而形成的创新绩效增幅。建议相关企业主动开展创新合作,并通过均衡性博弈机制完善自身技术吸收体系,实现“高校—企业”技术转移“双赢”初衷。     

Where have China’s state monopolies gone?

If China’s economy is an example of “state-capitalism,” then its large, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) could be expected to monopolize key sectors. But previous estimates of industrial concentration, using the Herfindahl—Hirschman Index (HHI), have suggested that the level of industrial concentration—and therefore the potential for the abuse of monopoly power—is very low. These studies have significantly underestimated HHI, since they do not consolidate subsidiary enterprises in Chinese survey data into larger business groups, or according to ultimate ownership. After making these adjustments, a measure of potential HHI shows that large state monopolies remain in oil and gas, electricity, tobacco and, potentially, automobiles. In particular, SOEs supervised by the central government are heavily invested in potentially concentrated industries. But aggregate profits of the state sector are driven more by the portfolio distribution of assets between resources, manufacturing and utilities, rather than industrial concentration within sectors.     

Environmental performance,innovation and spillovers. Evidence from a regional NAMEA

The achievement of positive Environmental Performance (EP) at national level could strongly depend on differences in regional features, namely productive specialization, regulation stringency and innovation capabilities of both public institutions and the private business sector. We present empirical evidence for a newly released NAMEA available for the 20 Italian regions in order to demonstrate the role played by sector innovation, regional spillovers and environmental policies. The Italian North–south divide regarding industrial development and productive specialization patterns seems to affect regional EP. Nonetheless, such a pattern presents some interesting differences, revealing a more heterogeneous distribution of emissions which may reflect the role of other driving forces. In particular, agglomerative effects seem to play a major role and the EP of neighboring regions influences the regional internal EP. This means that together with the spatial concentration of specific sectors into restricted areas, there is also some convergence in the adoption of cleaner or dirtier production process techniques. Finally, interregional technological spillovers are more important than sector internal innovation for improving EP, revealing that accounting for spatial features and linking ecological economics to regional economics are crucial in understanding the key drivers of EP.     

Income Polarization of the U.S. Working Class: An Institutionalist View

We provide an institutional insight into the trend of income polarization within the U.S. working class. In contrast to the previous industrial waves, the current and ongoing industrial revolution is characterized by the replacement of “creative destruction” with jobless growth. Instead of replacing the lost jobs with new ones, new disruptive technologies eliminate more jobs in traditional labor and capital-intensive sectors than create jobs in new idea-intensive sectors. By examining the relationship between the income share of the bottom 50 percent, the middle 40 percent, and the top 10 percent and technological progress, we obtain robust econometric results. According to our results, the income polarization among U.S. workers can be associated with the shift of R&D activities from the public to the corporate sector. The concentration of innovations by corporate capital limits the power of society to reduce inequality and to provide greater social stability through “the incredible productivity” of technological progress.     

The network of the Iranian techno-economic system

This is a quantitative study of Iranian techno-economic system at the disaggregated industry level. We measure interindustry technology diffusion in the manufacturing sector of Iranian economy in the framework of the Iranian interindustry transaction table and R&D-embodied product flows among the industries. Moreover, we used network analysis to gain a better understanding of the technological network of the manufacturing sector of the economy.Based on several indices that describe the aggregate technological network, we classify Iranian manufacturing sector as a dispersed, hierarchic system.We identified Chemicals and Chemical Products and Rubber and Plastics as the sectors with most powerful contacts in the network, and hence with the highest capability to diffuse technology in the network.We discovered that a large number of sectors in the Iranian innovation network do not diffuse or receive innovation from the other sectors of the economy, and present potential opportunities for widespread diffusion of innovations.     

Firms and industries in evolutionary economics: lessons from Marshall, Young, Steindl and Penrose

Evolutionary economists have tended to assess firms and industries separately, neglecting the role of their interaction in the process of economic growth and development. We trace the separation of firms and industries to the introduction of population thinking in the discipline of industrial economics, including some broadly evolutionary analyses. If researchers conflate a population of firms with an industry, they introduce “thin” means of relating firms to one another and to industries. Despite his device of the ‘representative firm’, Marshall develops “thick” means of relating firms to industries by means of their internal and external organizations. Penrose avoids the notion of industry by focussing on heterogeneous and potentially mobile firms. Young and Steindl develop mundane explanations of firms’ relations within groups and locate the impetus for economic growth in a poorly understood environment. We conclude that evolutionary economists should revisit firms’ boundaries, not in the sense of explaining the existence of firms but in a relating and communicating sense in which boundaries signify the selective means of firms’ relationships.     

Demand and innovation in productivity growth

The labour productivity impact of demand and innovation is investigated in this paper combining insights from the Kaldorian and Schumpeterian traditions. After a review of studies in such traditions, a general model is proposed for explaining productivity growth in European manufacturing and service industries in the late 1990s, followed by two distinct specifications for the industries oriented toward product innovation, and for those where process innovation dominates. The empirical analysis is based on the match of the SIEPI‐CIS2 database developed at the University of Urbino and Eurostat Input–Output Tables at the industry level, for 22 manufacturing sectors and 10 services sectors. Six European countries are considered: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The results show that productivity growth in European industries can be explained by a combination of technology factors and demand dynamics, confirming the complementarity of technology and demand effects. On the demand side, household consumption emerges as the most pervasive component of demand, able to stimulate greater efficiency in all manufacturing and service industries. Investment also has a role, focused however on the capital goods producing industries. On the technology side, the mechanisms of productivity growth are fundamentally different in the industries oriented towards product innovation and in those dominated by process innovation. This evidence supports the view that innovation in firms and industries can be associated to two contrasting strategies, searching either for technological competitiveness, through knowledge generation, product innovation and expansion of new markets, or aiming at greater cost competitiveness, through job reductions, labour saving investment, flexibility and restructuring.     

Industrial loans and market structure

Based on the observation that financing is one of the main obstacles to create new firms, this paper deals with the interactions between the market structure of both the banking sector and the borrowing industries. We consider that firms’ installation costs are financed by means of industrial loans from specialized banks. With endogenous entry in banking activity as well as in the borrowing industry, we find that a natural oligopoly emerges in both sectors if the entry cost in the industrial sector is small enough, relative to the banks’ entry cost.     

Innovation spending and productivity growth in the German economy 1980–1986

A newly developed technique involving vertically integrated input-output sectors is used to examine the relationship between labour productivity and innovation expenditures in the German economy during the period 1980 to 1986. The productivity measures used, dubbed Harrod-Robinson-Read (HRR), take into account the direct and indirect labour used in each consumption goods sector. Included in these measures is the labour content of new capital investment.

The HRR measures show higher rates of productivity growth in most sectors, compared to the simple direct labour requirements measures. This is due to the fact that the HRR measures take into account the increased efficiency with which new capital is produced. The second part of the study examines the relationship between labour productivity and innovation expenditures as measured by the IFO (Institute for Economic Research – Munich) innovation survey. Using cross section data for 58 German industries, a strong correlation was found between direct labour productivity growth and direct innovation expenditure.

These results suggest that with more detailed capital expenditure data it should be possible to describe more precisely the relationships between innovation activity, spending on new capital, and productivity changes. The key to examining these relationships in more detail is the growing wealth of information contained in recent innovation surveys such as those done by the IFO.