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Innovative Capability and Financing Constraints for Innovation: More Money, More Innovation

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2012 94(4), 1126-1142
This study presents a novel empirical approach to identify financing constraints for innovation based on the concept of an ideal test (Hall, 2008). Firms were offered a hypothetical payment and asked to choose between alternatives of use. If they selected additional innovation projects, they must have had some unexploited investment opportunities that were not profitable using more costly external finance. We attribute constraints for innovation not only to lacking financing, but also to firms' innovative capability. Econometric results show that financial constraints do not depend on the availability of internal funds per se but that they are driven by innovative capability

Optimal Timing of Innovations

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1968 50(3), 348 open access
The article shows that innovations are induced, since they become more profitable with the expansion of output. The amount of resources devoted to innovating activity, however, is in general not the optimal one because of the pressure of two opposing forces. On the one hand, competition between potential innovators tends to make this amount too large, on the other, the inability of innovators to capture all the benefits tends to make the amount too small. When all benefits are captured by the innovator either there is no economic growth due to innovations or else innovators are the sole beneficiaries from that growth. When benefits are diffused the innovation will always lead to economic growth, but only by sheer coincidence will it lead to maximum growth, which may be missed because the innovation is introduced either too early or too late. The rate of growth is always positive if the innovation is introduced too late. It may fall to zero with too-early introduction or even become negative if innovational activity is subsidized

The Risks of Innovation: Are Innovating Firms Less Likely to Die

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2015 97(3), 638-653 open access
While innovation matters for competitiveness, it may expose firms to survival risks. Using plant-product data for Chile and discretetime hazard models, we show that innovating plants have a lower hazard of exit. However, risk has a strong impact on the innovation-exit relationship: only innovators that retain diversified sources of revenue or face lower market risk are less likely to die. Single-product innovators are at greater risk of exiting. Exposure to technical risk does not affect exit probabilities differentially. We provide tentative evidence that singleproduct innovators have higher profits, which helps to rationalize their innovation decision despite the increased risk of exit

Taking Innovation to the Streets: Microgeography, Physical Structure, and Innovation

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2020 102(5), 912-928
In this paper, we analyze how the physical layout of cities affects innovation by influencing the organization of knowledge exchange. We exploit a novel data set covering all census block groups in the contiguous United States with information on innovation outcomes, street infrastructure, as well as population and workforce characteristics. To deal with concerns of omitted variable bias, we apply commuting zone fixed effects and construct instruments based on historic city planning. The results suggest that variation in street network density may explain regional innovation differentials beyond the traditional location externalities found in the literature

The Adoption of Interrelated Innovations: A Human Capital Approach

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1984 66(1), 70
A hstract-This paper develops a model of the decision to adopt interrelated innovations emphasizing the role of innovative ability and a measure of the economic incentive to be informed about innovations. Education, experience, and the availability of information are hypothesized to be measurable dimensions of innovative ability. The results from fitting univariate, conditional, and joint logistic models suggest that innovative ability contributes significantly to explaining the adoption of new technology but does not explain its diffusion. The results also indicate that the diffusion of previously available innovations depends on the introduction and adoption of interrelated current innovations

Innovation, Market Structure, and Firm Size

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1987 69(4), 567
The hypothesis that the relative innovative advantage between large and small firms is determined by market concentration, the extent of entry barriers, the composition of firm size within the industry, and the overall importance of innovation activity is tested. The authors find that large firms tend to have the relative innovative advantage in industries that are capital intensive, concentrated, highly unionized, and produce a differentiated good. The small firms tend to have the relative advantage in industries that are highly innovative, utilize a large component of skilled labor, and tend to be composed of a relatively high proportion of large firms

University Innovation and Local Economic Growth

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2022 104(4), 718-735
This paper identifies the extent to which knowledge from U.S. universities drives industry agglomeration. Establishment-level data indicate faster growth in employment, wages, and corporate innovation after the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act's shock to the spread of innovation from universities in industries more closely related to the nearby university's innovative strengths. Federal research funding amplified the effect. University knowledge spillovers strengthen with geographic proximity, density, and local skills. Consistent with spatial equilibrium models, the growth effect is driven by nearby entry in university-linked industries, especially of multiunit expansions; these firms disproportionately partner with universities in R&D, transfer IP, and innovate

Employment Protection Legislation, Multinational Firms, and Innovation

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2014 96(1), 135-150 open access
The theoretical effects of labor regulations, such as employment protection legislation (EPL), on innovation is ambiguous. EPL increases job security, and the greater enforceability of job contracts may increase worker investment in innovative activity. But EPL increases firms' adjustment costs, which may lead to underinvestment in activities that are likely to require adjustment, including technologically advanced innovation. In this paper, we find empirical evidence that these effects are at work—in particular, a higher share of multinational enterprise innovative activity in countries with high EPL is technologically advanced

Consumption Innovations and Income Innovations: The Case of the United Kingdom and Germany

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1986 68(1), 1
The present paper is a time series analysis of the relationship between consumption and income innovations. The empirical findings based on aggregate, seasonally unadjusted quarterly UK and German data suggest that the adjustment of consumption to income innovations is not instantaneous (within a quarter), and that the estimated marginal propensities to consume out of income innovations are too large to be compatible with the predictions of the rational expectations-life cycle model. It is found that the same qualitative results are obtained when the disposable income data for West Germany is disaggregated into labour income, transfer payments and profits (transferred from the business sector to households