1,720,996 research outputs found
Which governance of university–industry interactions increases the value of industrial inventions?
Full text linkWhile evidence suggests that industry inventors' interactions with universities enhance invention value, the role of interaction governance has so far been overlooked. Relying on an original survey of industry inventors of European patents based in Italy, we show that governance matters. Personal contractual collaborations between firms and individual academics lead to higher-value inventions than collaborations mediated by university institutions. The former enable more effective exploitation of academic knowledge, by facilitating its full transmission and integration into the firm's knowledge base
How Similar is Innovation in German, Italian and Spanish Medium-Technology Sectors? Implications for the Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Distance-to-the-Frontier Perspectives
No full textThis study analyzes innovation activities in medium-technology sectors in Germany, Italy and Spain and checks whether cross-country similarities or differences prevail. The results have important implications for the Sectoral Systems of Innovation and the Distance-to-the-Frontier frameworks. While the Sectoral Systems of Innovation predicts the existence of technology-related similarities in innovative patterns in the same sectors across countries, the Distance-to-the Frontier suggests the existence of relevant differences related with the level of technological development of each national sector. Using Community Innovation Survey data and adapting an econometric strategy first devised by Griffith, Huergo, Mairesse and Peters [Innovation and Productivity Across four European Countries, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22(4), 483-498, 2006], I test whether similarities or differences prevail across country in different features of innovation activity. The results show that relevant differences between the three countries exist in the intensity of R&D activities and in the economic impact of different types of innovations, providing support to the Distance-to-the-Frontier hypothesis. On the contrary, cross-country similarities emerge among the sources of knowledge used to develop innovations, in line with the Sectoral Systems of Innovation framework. The results highlight the importance to take into account both frameworks for a useful analysis of innovation within sectors and across countries
Why do innovators not apply for trademarks? The role of information asymmetries and collaborative innovation
Full text linkThis paper analyses the underlying reasons why innovators do not apply for trademarks for all of their valuable inventions. Using a unique database of UK innovations linked to innovative firms, the empirical analysis highlights the many ways that firms can alleviate information asymmetries and the constraints imposed by collaborative innovation without taking recourse to trademarks. When information asymmetries are not at stake, i.e. when firms use an already existing trademark for their innovations or when they use intermediaries for its distribution, trademarks no longer serve their purpose, leading firms to avoid using it for their innovations. Open innovation also decreases the incentive to trademark, especially when the innovative process involves users, mainly because of property rights issues or because the innovator prefers to use the clients’ own distribution channels
Academic knowledge and economic growth: are scientific fields all alike?
No full textThe article elaborates and tests the hypothesis that there are different types of academic
knowledge that exert different effects on economic growth. Knowledge items
differ with respect to the specificities of both their generation and exploitation processes.
Building upon these bases, the article articulates the crucial distinction
between knowledge as a capital good, necessary to produce all the other goods at
lower costs and knowledge as a final good that affects directly the utility of consumers.
We use Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data
about the disciplinary composition of the research and development expenses in
higher education and total factor productivity growth in the years 1998–2008 in 13
countries to test the hypothesis. The results confirm the strong differences in the contribution
of each discipline to growth accounting
Export-led innovation : The role of export destinations
No full textThis article analyzes the effect of exporting activity on the innovative performances of firms in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and UK. It argues that the positive effect of exporting on innovation usually found in the literature varies according to the specific destinations of exports, and it identifies two dimensions along which export destinations might differ: the level of foreign technological spillovers available to exporting firms (the technological learning effect) and the type of foreign demand that exporting firms are able to access (the foreign demand effect). The empirical analysis, which takes advantage of firm-level information about the export destinations of exporters, shows that while the technological learning effect increases mainly the incentives to introduce brand new product innovations, the foreign demand effect fosters the adoption of process innovations
Does Mobility across Universities Raise Scientific Productivity?
No full textUsing a highly comprehensive new data set on Swedish researchers, we investigate the effects of inter-university mobility on researcher productivity. Our study suggests substantial gains from mobility on scientific output. The empirical analysis addresses selection using inverse probability treatment censoring weights. We find that mobility induces a long-lasting increase in a researcher's publications by 32% and citations by 63%. Such mobility effects are not explained by promotions taking place jointly with a move. Positive effects are found among individuals who move between universities and not for those who move to or from university colleges. Moreover, we find that the positive effect of moving only applies to researchers in medicine, natural sciences and engineering and technology, with no effect of mobility found in the social sciences and in the humanities
Small firms and patenting revisited
Full text linkIn order to observe a patent application at the firm level, two conditions need to be met: new products need to be of patentable quality, which depends both on the degree of novelty of innovations and on the total number (portfolio) of innovations; and the benefits of patents need to be higher than the costs of owning them. Analyzing the patent propensity of small and large UK firms using a novel innovation-level survey (the SIPU survey) linked to Community Innovation Survey data, we find that when we consider the whole innovation portfolio, smaller firms do patent less than larger firms. However, using data on individual innovations, we find that smaller firms are no less likely to patent any specific innovation than larger firms. We argue that size differences in the probability to patent relate primarily to the “portfolio effect,” i.e., larger firms generate more innovations than smaller firms, and therefore are more likely to create one or more which are patentable. As for the decision to patent a patentable innovation, we find that cost barriers, more than issues of innovation quality or enforceability, deter small firms from patenting specific innovations. Measures to address the costs of patenting for smaller—perhaps by considering patents as eligible costs for R&D tax credits—and/or subsidizing SMEs’ participation in IP litigation schemes may both encourage patent use by smaller firms
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