Knowledge that Transforms

Recent years have seen a reorganisation of innovation production to favour groups of collaborators, and increasingly specialised individual inventors. In this paper I construct a panel of highly prolific inventors, whom I observe frequently throughout their career. I develop a simple setting whereby inventors face a trade-off between acquiring knowledge depth and knowledge breadth. Empirically, I provide suggestive evidence that after conditioning upon the selection of inventors into specialised careers in certain technological fields, specialisation is associated with a lower probability of contributing to a top-cited invention over the remainder of their career. This suggestive evidence is consistent with a mechanism where specialised inventors are vulnerable to knowledge obsolescence in the late stages of their career. The negative relationship between specialisation and highly cited inventions is concerning given the disproportionate value of such inventions to society. • I create a novel dataset on the careers of prolific inventors. • I integrate career cycle effects into the study of specialisation and productivity. • I develop a measure of specialisation at the inventor-field-year level. • I find specialisation is negatively linked to contributing to top-cited inventions. • I present evidence that this is consistent with a knowledge obsolescence mechanism.

Firm innovation is strongly shaped by regional endowment – defined here as regional supply- and demand-side conditions for innovation – yet many regions are disadvantaged by having low levels of such endowment. While recent research increasingly emphasizes the role of regional soft factors , such as psychological openness, we still know relatively little about how such factors influence firm innovation under conditions of low structural endowment. Theoretically, we draw on Schmookler's scissors metaphor to conceptualize regional supply and demand conditions as hard, structural endowments of regions. We argue that favorable regional soft conditions – specifically psychological openness – can partially offset these structural constraints, but only for firms that possess sufficient absorptive capacity to recognize, absorb, and exploit such favorable regional conditions. Using longitudinal firm-level data on Swedish firms from 2004 to 2018, we show that regional psychological openness does not have a universal positive effect on product innovation. Instead, our results indicate that the benefits of regional openness are concentrated among firms with higher absorptive capacity operating in regions with low endowment, while firms in regions with higher endowment do not benefit in the same way. Implications for research and policymaking are discussed. • Regional soft factors are associated with firm innovation outcomes. • Regional psychological openness may offset regional structural disadvantages. • Firms need absorptive capacity to benefit from regional psychological openness. • Hard and soft factors at firm and region levels jointly shape firm innovation. • In high-endowment regions, psychological openness may coincide with lower innovation.

This paper investigates the relationship between international postdoctoral stays and academic career advancement among researchers returning to the Italian university system. Using a unique dataset of Italian PhD holders observed over a 30-year period, we analyze how international postdoctoral stays are associated with two key career outcomes: (i) the time between PhD completion and first appointment as Assistant Professor ( time-to-entry ), and (ii) the time between Assistant Professor appointment and promotion to Associate Professor ( time-to-promotion ). We identify international postdoctoral stays by tracing foreign affiliations in researchers' publication records and examine how their association with career progression is moderated by institutional inbreeding, home-country linkages, and the persistence of international research networks. To explore these relationships, we apply a Cox proportional hazards model combined with entropy balancing. Our findings were validated by using curriculum vitae information for a subsample of researchers. We found that international postdoctoral stays are associated with slower entry into the academic system but are positively related to shorter time-to-promotion. Notably, this association is strongest for researchers promoted at universities other than their alma mater . We also observe that maintaining a strong home-country publishing network is associated with quicker entry as Assistant Professor, while sustained collaboration in postdoc-period co-author networks is linked to faster promotion to Associate Professor. • Postdocs returnees to the Italian academic system take longer time to get an Assistant Professorship position. • Controlling for productivity, postdocs returnees get promoted faster. • Postdoctoral stays longer than 18 months at prestigious foreign host institutions are associated with faster promotion in “non-inbreeding” universities. • The Italian academic labor market has increasingly rewarded quality and mobility among recent PhD cohorts.

Firms seeking fast-mover advantages often confront a critical challenge: not only whether to imitate rivals' innovations but also how quickly to do so. Fast imitation, however, entails risks, particularly in highly uncertain environments. By bridging information-based and rivalry-based theories of imitation with the technological change literature, we investigate how firms adjust their speed of imitation of rivals' technological innovations during periods of technological transition and technological stability. Using a database of 9060 mobile phones and 156 mobile-phone-related technological innovations introduced from 1992 to 2019, we find that a firm's speed of imitation is lower during periods of technological transition following a technological discontinuity compared to periods of technological stability where a dominant design is established. Furthermore, we find that the relationship between technological transitions and a firm's speed of imitation is shaped by three moderating factors: the firm's pioneering orientation, the relative market share position of the technology pioneer, and the visibility of the technological innovation. Our study contributes to the imitation and technological change literature by providing a nuanced understanding of the trade-offs associated with speed of imitation in the context of industry-wide technological shifts. • Technological transitions slow imitation as firms face greater uncertainty. • Pioneering firms pursue faster imitation even amid transitional periods. • The pioneer–focal firm market share gap affects imitation speed during transitions. • Technology visibility reduces uncertainty, accelerating imitation during transitions. • Imitation speed reflects rivalry or information motives under varying uncertainty.

This paper builds an international trade macroeconomic agent-based model and introduces state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with an industrial policy mission in a developing country. We evaluate the macroeconomic convergence of the South with respect to the North. Our model suggests that SOEs may significantly enhance technological capabilities and innovation dynamics in the developing country, by accelerating the diffusion of new technologies thereby enhancing the overall productivity growth. They also positively affect market competition and trade dynamics by shaping long-term specialization patterns and development trajectories. The effectiveness of SOEs is driven by “patient capital” and improved technological endowment. Our results show that policies prioritizing the preservation of firms endowed with high technological capabilities, while relieving them from short-term financial constraints, may lead to improved convergence. This emphasizes the importance of strategic selectivity of policymakers, indicating that mission-oriented SOEs represent a relevant policy instrument for catching-up.

Are views on research ethics and questionable research practices discipline-specific? This study investigates attitudes toward research misconduct and questionable research practices (QRPs) among researchers ( n = 11,050) and ethics reviewers ( n = 144) across academic fields. Our findings indicate that while most questionable practices are viewed as unacceptable overall, attitudes vary systematically across fields. Medical researchers and ethics reviewers generally viewed questionable practices as less acceptable than researchers and reviewers in other fields. Female researchers and full professors also had stricter attitudes.

Technological diversification is crucial for regions to foster innovation and, therefore, to support economic growth. In this paper, we study how different types of technological diversification affect the performance of regional economies. We focus on the effect of changes in technological relatedness and unconventionality – as indicators of related and unrelated diversification – on GDP and employment growth in European regions. Leveraging information on regional economic performances and patents filed at the European Patent Office, we estimate Panel Vector Autoregression models and generate Impulse Response Functions to assess to what extent and with what persistence relatedness and unconventionality affect regional economic performances. Our findings, which have implications for the design of new place-based innovation policies, reveal that increases in technological relatedness have a short-term positive effect on employment growth but a negative effect on GDP growth. Conversely, increases in technological unconventionality have a higher and long-lasting positive impact on GDP growth but no effect on employment growth. • Technological capabilities are essential in building regional competitive advantage. • Regions should combine different forms of regional technological diversification. • These forms have heterogeneous effects on regional economic performance. • Technological Relatedness has a short-term positive effect on Employment growth. • Technological Unconventionality has a long-term positive effect on GDP growth.