119,249 research outputs found
The gains from technology. Technology, exports and profits
No full textThe introduction of new products, greater competitiveness-based export performances, and higher profits are three major benefits from technological change. We build on previous work that has identified ‘virtuous circles’ between R&D, innovation and profits in firms and industries [Bogliacino, F., and M. Pianta. 2013a. “Profits, R&D and Innovation: A Model and a Test.” Industrial and Corporate Change 22 (3): 649–678; Bogliacino, F., and M. Pianta. 2013b. “Innovation and Demand in Industry Dynamics. R&D, New products and Profits.” In Long Term Economic Development, edited by A. Pyka, and E. S. Andersen. Berlin: Springer., Bogliacino, F., M. Lucchese, L. Nascia, and M. Pianta. 2016a. “Modelling the Virtuous Circle of Innovation. A Test on Italian Firms” Industrial and Corporate Change. doi:10.1093/icc/dtw045.] and between R&D, innovation and exports [Guarascio, D., M. Pianta, M. Lucchese, and F. Bogliacino. 2015. “Business Cycles, Technology and Exports.” Economia Politica – Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics 32 (2): 167–200; Guarascio, D., M. Pianta, and F. Bogliacino. 2016. “Export, R&D and New Products: A Model and a Test on European Industries.” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 26 (4): 869–905.]. We test a model – with a Three Stage Least Squares methodology – using data at the industry level – for 39 manufacturing and service industries – for 6 major EU economies – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – over the period 1995–2011. Results confirm the presence of a ‘virtuous circle’ linking the gains from technology, and identify the specific role of additional variables and the presence of lags and feedbacks. Moreover, the relevance of differences between Northern and Southern European countries is examined, with separate estimations that shed new light on the heterogeneity of these relationships
Modelling the virtuous circle of innovation. A test on Italian firms
No full textThis paper investigates the ‘virtuous circle’ between innovative inputs, outputs and economic performance with a three-equation model highlighting feedback loops and simultaneous relations. An empirical test is conducted of innovative expenditure, innovative sales and economic results in a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, comparing occasional and serial innovators. The data, for 1998-2007, are drawn from a rich panel of Italian firms with 20 or more employees compiled by the National Institute of Statistics, ISTAT, including three waves of Community Innovation Surveys. The model extends that developed at industry level by Bogliacino and Pianta (2013a, 2013b) and confirms those earlier findings. For the core of persistent innovators, there are complex links at play in different phases of the innovation process and in the feedbacks between economic success and sustained innovation expenditure
Industrial policy and technology in Italy
No full textAfter the crisis started in 2008 Italy’s industry has lost close to one quarter of its industrial production. The possibility for the country to reconstruct its production capacity largely depends on whether a new industrial policy is developed. The article documents the decline of Italy’s industry and technology and the impact of the crisis. The demise of traditional industrial policy in Italy and Europe in the last two decades is examined, assessing the consequences of the retreat of public action in this field and the evolution of the current debate. A detailed analysis of the current tools used in Italy’s industrial and innovation policy is carried out, showing its ‘horizontal’ approach, limited resources, fragmented measures, modest impact. Current initiatives appear unable to support a revival of production and domestic private investment, close Italy’s gap in R&D and innovation and upgrade its technological activities. In conclusion, a proposal for a new industrial policy combining Italian and European initiatives is summarised
Generating with flexible templates from C-STAR Interchange Format
No full textWe present a system for generating Italian sentences from the interlingua semantic representation (Interchange Format) adopted within the C-STAR speech to speech translation project. The generation task in our application scenario is made peculiar by: i) a semantically underspecified input representation whose interpretation relies on implicit domain knowledge; ii) the spoken language output, characterized by frequent use of idiomatic forms, fragmentary phrases, etc. iii) a strong requirement for high time efficiency. We discuss how these constraints lead us to develop a template based generator providing a good trade-off betzeen flexibility and efficiency. We overcome the shortcomings of traditional static templates by using flexible templates which allow an elegant treatment of phonological adjustments, morphological agreement (very frequent in Italian) and syntactic constituency phenomen
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