Germany's Technological Specialization Assures Growth Opportunities

Germany's economic profile gives reason to believe that the country will emerge strengthened from the current economic crisis. Germany boasts the world's highest share of value-added output attributable to (R&D) intensive goods and knowledge intensive services. At the same time, Germany possesses an extremely broad range of economic sectors that rely on R&D intensive goods and knowledge intensive services. German firms have strong competitive advantages in numerous industries, including vehicle manufacturing, chemicals, machine building, measurement and medical technologies, as well as business oriented services. Moreover, in relation to its important trading partners, Germany has a unique production portfolio. Although Germany's dependence on exports and specialization in the production of capital equipment has led to a sharp decline in demand in the current crisis, the country's orientation in R&D intensive technology represents a strong foundation for renewed growth as soon as the global economic climate improves. However, continued business investment in R&D during the recession is necessary if Germany hopes to emerge the crisis on sound footing-even if such investment does not generate revenues over the near term.Industrial specialization, Technological change

Technological Specialization as a Driving Force of Production Specialization

The paper analyses the impact of the technological specializations of the EU-15 countries on their production specializations. A neoclassically inspired empirical model is specified and estimated to explain for the considered countries the value added shares of the manufacturing industries in the area of R&D-intensive technology as well as in the area of the remaining technology by technological differences and relative factor endowments. Technological specialization is approximated by the patent stocks in the areas of leading-edge, high-level and the remaining technology, while further technological differences are captured by indices of transferable knowledge and fixed country effects. The empirical results show that the technological specializations of the EU countries are an important driving force of their production specializations.Factor Supply, Panel Data Analysis, Production Specialization, Technological Specialization,

The technological specialization of Europe in the 1990s

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the international position of Europe by (i) presenting new evidence on technological specialization and competitiveness and (ii) exploring methodological issues underlying the empirical analysis. The results show that the technological profile of the member countries of the European Union offers a wide scope for technology transfer and inter-industry trade both within the European Union and between the member countries of the European Union on the one hand and Japan, the United States and Eastern Europe on the other. However, risks loom large in the possible eastward enlargement of the European Union and in the formation of a monetary union, because of the former's and the latter's potential impact on the European Union's technological profile and the international competitiveness of European firms.

Financial Markets, the Pattern of Specialization and Comparative Advantage. Evidence from OECD countries.

Due to underlying technological differences, industries differ in their need for external finance. Since the services provided by the financial sector are largely immobile across countries, the pattern of specialization should be influenced by the degree of financial development. We find that this effect is strong: The financial sector has an even greater impact on the pattern of specialization among OECD countries than do differences in human- and physical capital. Further, it gives rise to comparative advantage in a way consistent with the Hecksher-Ohlin-Vanek model. Results on which aspects of financial systems that matter for specialization are also presented.Financial intermediation; Financial systems; Specialization patterns; Comparative advantage

The Division of Labor Within Firms

The paper examines the determinants of the division of labor within firms. It provides an explanation of the pervasive change in work organization away from the traditional functional departments and towards multi-tasking and job rotation. Whereas the existing literature on the division of labor within firms emphasizes the returns from specialization and the need for coordination of the work of different workers, the present analysis focuses on the returns from multi-tasking, which is shown to arise from informational and technological complementarities among tasks as well as from the exploitation of the versatility of human capital.Division of labor; specialization; multi-tasking; organization of work; technological change; information flows

(WP 2018-05) Specialization, Fragmentation, and Pluralism in Economics

This paper investigates whether specialization in research is causing economics to become an increasingly fragmented and diverse discipline with a continually rising number of niche-based research programs and a declining role for dominant cross-science research programs. It opens by framing the issue in terms of centrifugal and centripetal forces operating on research in economics, and then distinguishes descriptive from normative pluralism. It reviews recent research regarding the JEL code and the economics’ J. B. Clark Award that points towards rising specialization and fragmentation of research in economics. It then reviews five related arguments that might explain increasing specialization and fragmentation in economics: (i) Smith’s early division of labor view, (ii) Kuhn’s later thinking about the importance of specialization, (iii) Heiner’s behavioral burden of knowledge argument, (iv) Ross innovation-diffusion analysis and Arthur’s theory of technological change as determinants of specialization in science, and (v) the effects of space and culture or internationalization on innovation appropriation. The paper then discusses what descriptive pluralism implies about normative pluralism, and makes a case for multidisciplinarity over interdisciplinarity as a basis for arguments promoting pluralism. The paper closes with brief comments on the issue of specialization and pluralism in the wider world outside economics and science

Specialization through Cross-licensing in a Multi-product Stackelberg Duopoly

We argue that cross-licensing is a device to establish specialization in a multi-product Stackelberg duopoly under process innovation. The optimum licensing contracts are royalty contracts. These are designed so as to implement the joint-profit maximization (monopoly) outcome as the unique Nash equilibrium of the competition game. The monopoly-First-Best optimum is attained: each firm produces solely the good for which it has a technological advantage, firms' joint profits attain the First Best optimum. We study the implications of limitations to contract enforceability and find that this may reduce the attained degree of specialization, but social welfare may increase.cross-licensing, specialization, process innovation, Stackelberg.

The Division of Labor and the Market for Organizations

The paper examines the determinants of the division of labor within firms. It provides an explanation of the pervasive observed changes in work organization away from the traditional functional departments and towards multi-tasking and job rotation. Whereas the existing literature on the division of labor within firms emphasizes the returns from specialization and the need for coordination of the work of different workers, the present analysis focuses on the returns from multi-tasking, which is shown to arise from informational and technological complementarities among tasks as well as from the exploitation of the versatility of human capital. The paper also explores how the move towards multi-tasking can affect the labor market, and the distribution of firms across organizational forms.Division of labor, specialization, multi-tasking, organization of work, technological change, information flows

Fuel on the Invention Funnel: Technology Licensing-in, Antecedents and Invention

In this paper, we examine the impact of technology licensing-in on firm invention performance. Studying a sample of 266 licensees and matched non-licensees using a two-part model specification, we find that licensees are more likely to introduce inventions than their non-licensee counterparts. This holds both if we consider invention in general, and invention in the licensed technological class only. We also show that familiarity with the licensed technology and technological specialization drives licensees to pursue a narrow invention strategy primarily focusing on the technological class specified in the license agreement.Licensing-in, Invention, Dynamic Capabilities, Learning Opportunities, Technological familiarity, Technological specialization

Factor Supplies and Specialization in the World Economy

A core prediction of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is that countries specialize in goods in which they have a comparative advantage, and that the source of comparative advantage is differences in relative factor supplies. To examine this theory, we use the most extensive dataset available and document the pattern of industrial specialization and factor endowment differences in a broad sample of rich and developing countries over a lengthy period (1970-92). Next, we develop an empirical model of specialization based on factor endowments, allowing for unmeasurable technological differences and estimate it using panel data techniques. In addition to estimating the effects of factor endowments, we also consider the alternative hypothesis that the level of aggregate productivity by itself can explain specialization. Our results clearly show the importance of factor endowments on specialization: relative endowments do matter.