Determinants of technological change in the service industries

The Service Industries provide numerous examples of how technological change may be impeded. Either the economic state of the industry or the state of scientific and engineering knowledge can limit inventive activity and productivity advance. Consumer ignorance, lack of producer incentives, complex production interdependencies, and market fragmentation are only a few factors limiting the role of demand in stimulating the discovery and diffusion of new services and production techniques. On the cost side, technical uncertainty, time horizons, and discount rates affect decisions to engage in R & D. In addition, strategic market considerations, such as potential entry, reaction speeds of rivals, and numbers of competitors affect the benefits from early introduction of new technologies. These institutional and economic considerations need to be taken into account for technological forecasting related to the Service Industries.     

The development and use of machine tools in historical perspective

Improvements and diffusion of machine tools have had a major impact on productivity in manufacturing industry since the Industrial Revolution. The impact has been both direct and indirect. The direct impact consists of rising labor productivity through the use of faster, more accurate, more mechanized machines, and of the higher capital productivity through higher operating rates, greater reliability, and higher utilization rates. The indirect impact arises as the use of new or improved machine tools has necessitated or facilitated organizational changes affecting both labor, capital, raw materials, and energy. The magnitude of these impacts has varied over the years with the areas of application as new production methods have made possible entirely new products or lowered the cost of existing products sufficiently to create new markets. The first part of the paper contains a review of the historical development of machine tool technology since the Industrial Revolution, paying particular attention to the role of interaction between producers and users of machine tools. The second part focuses on the way in which recent development differs from that in earlier periods. In particular, it is found that the major changes in machine tool technology, from the so-called American System of Manufactures in the early 19th century to the development of ‘Detroit Automation’ in the 1950s, have tended to improve mass production methods. By contrast, the development of numerical control, beginning in 1948, has opened up the possibility of extending industrial production methods and automation to areas previously characterized more by handicraft methods. Even though this technology is not yet fully utilized, it is clear that the economics of industrial production has been revolutionized by the cost reduction of small scale production relative to large scale and the degree of flexibility offered by the technology. The third section of the paper deals with the present development trends, particularly discussing the increasing importance of flexibility and the shifting emphasis from development of individual pieces of machinery to integration and control of entire manufacturing processes, i.a. through the use of industrial robots. The reasons for the need for greater flexibility in manufacturing are also identified.     

以战略变革跨跃技术间断--基于技术与战略相匹配的视角

技术间断具有三个基本特征:利益隐蔽性、思维锁定性和市场破坏性。前瞻性、学习性和灵活性是战略变革的三大特性,也是战略变革成功跨越技术间断的前提条件。战略变革可以应对技术间断;技术间断为战略变革提供了良好契机;战略变革会引发新的技术间断。     

'Social Democracy on the Back Foot': The ALP and the 'New' Australian Model

Politicians hope that technological innovation will mitigate the threat of climate change and expect that capitalism will most efficiently deliver the necessary technologies. Yet capitalism is not monolithic. The Varieties of Capitalism approach suggests that capitalist states fall within a spectrum between liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). How do the relative styles of technological innovation in LMEs versus CMEs affect their ability to reduce carbon emissions? This article addresses this question by investigating the relative technological styles and strengths of LMEs and CMEs, and comparing them to the technological development needed to combat climate change. While technological change in CMEs tends to be more incremental, LMEs, with their greater orientation to competitive markets, are said to better support radical technological change. This article finds that the US's LME variety of capitalism hampers its ability to address climate change by comparison to CMEs such as Germany and Japan, and therefore suggests that the US's lack of leadership on climate change is as much a consequence of its variety of capitalism as an absence of political will.     

Income prospects and job mobility: The case of Sweden

The study has two interrelated objectives. The first one is to explore the role of expected wage gains for mobility decisions, the second to investigate the effects of mobility on subsequent earnings. The econometric analysis takes the interdependence between wages and mobility into account; wages are affected by mobility and mobility decisions respond to alternative prospective wages. The results show, among other things, that job movers in Sweden received an increase in real wage growth rates per year of 4 percent compared to a situation where they had not moved during the period 1968–1974. We also find some evidence that self-selection in the labor market is efficiency improving; the excess wage growth from job changing is higher for movers than for measurably similar stayers.     

Training Systems and Labor Mobility: A Comparison between Germany and Sweden*

The mobility effect of general and specific training is a key issue in the debate on the design of educational systems. Using data from two retrospective life‐history surveys, we compare general school‐based vocational training and specific apprenticeship training with regard to inter‐firm, inter‐occupational and inter‐industrial mobility. The results show that workers with school‐based degrees display greater occupational mobility, while no difference in firm and industrial mobility can be discerned. This suggests that apprenticeships do not eliminate job search at labor market entry, that they reduce occupational mobility, and that responsiveness to structural change is similar under both training systems.     

Job mobility,wage dispersion,and technological change: An asymmetric information perspective

This paper develops a model of job mobility and wage dispersion with asymmetric information. Contrary to existing models in which the superior information of current employers leads to market collapse, this model generates a unique equilibrium outcome in which (a) positive turnover exists and (b) identical workers may be paid differently. The model implies that, in the presence of technological change that is skill-biased and favors general skills over firm-specific skills, the wage distribution becomes more spread out (corresponding to greater inequality) and job mobility increases.     

Young in class: Implications for inattentive/hyperactive behaviour of Canadian boys and girls

Using data from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), this paper investigates the impact of school entry age on inattentive/hyperactive behaviours. We employ both an across‐provinces and time difference‐in‐differences approach and a within‐province regression discontinuity design. We find that being young in class causes greater inattentive/hyperactive behaviour, exacerbating any inattentive/hyperactive behaviour exhibited prior to school entry. These results also hold in sibling fixed effect models. We do not find gender differences in the effects, although since boys are more likely to be inattentive/hyperactive at school entry, they are more affected. These effects persist into early adolescence.     

Better LATE? Instrumental Variables Estimation of the Returns to Job Mobility during Transition

Recent theoretical contributions to the problem of job mobility decisions during the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy suggest that individuals self-select into specific forms of job mobility behaviour on the basis of their unobservable characteristics. In this case, standard results from both simple treatment–control comparisons of average income and from OLS regressions of reduced-form earnings equations do generally not identify any causal effect of job mobility on income. This paper addresses the endogeneity problem related to job mobility in a quasi-experimental framework and estimates the returns to (early) job mobility in the Eastern German transition process for the period 1990–96. Identification is based on instrumental variables estimation. Two instruments are suggested that account for some of the variation in the job mobility behaviour throughout transition. They allow further for a natural distinction between forced and voluntary movers on the basis of the local average treatment effect (LATE) interpretation of IV estimates. Estimation results contrast strongly with results from both simple treatment–control comparisons and simple OLS estimation. They suggest negative returns to forced job mobility as opposed to positive returns to voluntary job mobility early in transition, thus stressing the existence of heterogeneous returns to job mobility.     

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.     

The PC Industry: New Economy or Early Life-Cycle?

The paper studies the co-evolution of industrial turbulence and financial volatility in the early phase of the life-cycle of an old high-tech industry and a new high-tech industry: the U.S. auto industry from 1899–1929 and the U.S. PC industry from 1974–2000. In both industries, the first three decades were characterized by industrial turbulence: radical technological change, high entry and exit rates, and rapidly falling prices. However, unlike in the auto industry, in the PC industry technological change and new entry did not lead to strong instability of market shares—at the core of the monopoly-destroying effect of Schumpeterian creative destruction—until the 1990s, when the lead of the incumbents from the pre-existing mainframe and minicomputer industries was undermined. In both industries, stock prices were the most volatile and idiosyncratic during those years in which technological change disrupted market shares the most (Autos: 1918–1928; PCs: 1990–2000). Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: L11, 030, G12.     

Innovation and diffusion of environmental technology: Industrial NOx abatement in Sweden under refunded emission payments

We study the actual process of technical change in the case of NOx abatement from large stationary sources that have been regulated by very forceful policies in Sweden. Considerable progress has been made in lowering aggregate emissions and this paper seeks to disaggregate average industry improvements to study how much of it is due to innovations by first movers, and how much is achieved by adoption and diffusion of technology. We find both factors very important. Innovation has been rapid: the best firms have cut emissions on the order of 70%. In spite of this, reductions have actually been even more rapid for the majority of firms so that the median firms have caught up with best practice. We analyze various characteristics of the technological change observed.     

Innovation and diffusion of environmental technology: Industrial NOx abatement in Sweden under refunded emission payments

We study the actual process of technical change in the case of NOx abatement from large stationary sources that have been regulated by very forceful policies in Sweden. Considerable progress has been made in lowering aggregate emissions and this paper seeks to disaggregate average industry improvements to study how much of it is due to innovations by first movers, and how much is achieved by adoption and diffusion of technology. We find both factors very important. Innovation has been rapid: the best firms have cut emissions on the order of 70%. In spite of this, reductions have actually been even more rapid for the majority of firms so that the median firms have caught up with best practice. We analyze various characteristics of the technological change observed.     

Income distribution, market size and the evolution of industry

An industry typically experiences initial mass entry and later shakeout of producers over its life cycle. However, the timing of the evolution varies substantially across markets. By exploring the dynamic interactions between technology progress and demand diffusion, our theory suggests that the cross-market differences of industrial evolution are largely the result of underlying demand factors. Particularly, higher consumer income or larger market size tends to drive faster demand diffusion and earlier industry shakeout. A comparative study on the US and UK television industries supports the theoretical findings.     

Entry and exit as a source of aggregate productivity growth in two alternative technological regimes

This paper proposes a neo-Schumpeterian model in order to discuss how the mechanisms of entry and exit contribute to industry productivity growth in alternative technological regimes. Our central hypothesis is that new firms generate gains in aggregate productivity by increasing both the productivity level and competition intensity. By assuming that firms learn about the relevant technology through a variety of sources, and by allowing a continuous flow of entry and exit into the market, our study shows that firm exit and output contraction take mostly place among less productive firms, while output expansion and entry are concentrated among the more efficient ones. The greater is the competitive pressure generated by new entrants, the higher is the expected productivity level of established firms. Overall, our analysis suggests that micro analysis is the proper complement to aggregate industry studies, as it provides a considerable insight into the causes of productivity growth.     

Technological Creativity and Cheap Labour? Explaining the Growing International Competitiveness of German Mechanical Engineering before World War I

Abstract. Which factors caused the growing international competitiveness of German mechanical engineering industry in the pre‐World War I period? In this paper, we want to address this question and elucidate whether or not the international market success of machine builders in the German Empire was determined by technological creativity and the availability of a comparatively cheap labour force. Based on an unbalanced panel, we therefore investigate the influence of demand, labour costs and technological creativity on export performance of 32 different machinery types. We find robust evidence that the development of export–import ratios in mechanical engineering was positively influenced by the growth of patent stocks that represent the new knowledge being available for German machine builders. In addition, we present some evidence for the assumption that the growing international competitiveness of German mechanical engineering was also caused by decreasing relative unit labour cost.     

Institutional support for technological improvement — The case of Hungary

The technological “time warp” in which Hungary, like other Central and Eastern European countries, has found itself since the 1950s is at an end. This article concentrates on the transformation of institutional structures that support innovation and industrial technological development. First, it summarizes the types of institutions that support technological development. In a market economy, the process of generation and diffusion of innovation largely depends on the institutional and economic structure of the country. In a narrower sense, those institutions might be included in this group whose aim is wholly or in part to assist firms in experimenting with, understanding, and implementing new products and new production processes and improving quality. This article then details forms of inter-firm cooperation and highlights some empirical research findings based on three sectors — the pharmaceutical, machine tool, and car parts industries — which represent three different cases in the restructuring of Hungarian manufacturing. The main lesson of the study is that industry during its redeployment can create few demands for technology development institutes. Because of inherited structure, the accumulated knowledge of existing institutes and the supply and scattered demand of industry for technological support do not regularly coincide.     

The Most-Favoured-Customer Pricing Policy and Competitive Advantage

The paper investigates the effects on competition of the unilateral most-favoured-customer pricing policy. A model is considered in which a multimarket incumbent firm faces a threat of entry in one of its two markets. It is shown that contemporaneous most-favoured-customer clauses may change competition to the advantage of the incumbent both under strategic substitutes and strategic complements. If the duopolistic market is strong, the most-favoured-customer policy makes the incumbent 'tough' and may be used for entry deterrence purposes.     

The motor vehicle industry in an emerging nation: the case of Brazil

As in other emerging nations, in Brazil, the motor vehicle industry is considered to be strategically important for economic development because of its backward and forward linkages and possibilities for export-led growth. This study analyses prospects for the industry by estimating an industry-level cost function that includes output of both vehicles and component parts with capital, labour and intermediate goods as inputs. The cost elasticity of output (an indicator of scale properties) and the elasticity relationships among inputs are explored. One unexpected outcome of the work that appears to be robust is that during early years of the study period, the industry had constant returns or even diseconomies of scale. However, during later years, when output was greater, there were economies of scale. This finding is likely the result of some combination of the entry of new firms, the development of new models or technological change. The study concludes that if firm output can be increased, economies of scale can be expected to strengthen the position of the Brazilian industry in the international marketplace.