Does Inertia Pay Off? Empirical assessment of an evolutionary-ecological model of human capital decisions at firm level

This paper empirically assesses the validity of a model which combines organisational ecology and evolutionary theory to analyse human capital accumulation decisions at firm level. The main argument of the model is that factors underlying the process of plants’ reproduction, especially the process of fission, must be isolated and related to the economic motivations of employers to hire top educated and highly skilled people. Inert behaviour in human capital accumulation decisions stands here as a rational outcome. Logistic estimates, based on the whole population of plants of the Portuguese textiles, provide statistical evidence corroborating the fission hypothesis. This evidence constitutes a critical examination of the mainstream economics concerning the demand side of human capital.Human capital; population ecology theory; evolutionary theory; Inertia; Fission; textiles; Portugal

On the Link between Human Capital and Firm Performance. A Theoretical and Empirical Survey

The present paper provides a review of the literature focusing the relationship between human capital and performance essentially at firm level. The exposition is approached in three different but interrelated perspectives: economic, technological and survival. The exercise of reviewing existing literature permitted to uncover four major neglected issues: 1) the analysis of human capital – skills relationship; 2) the determinants of demands for human capital and how those demands change; interrelated with the second, 3) the influence of social and institutional context on the accumulation of human capital; and 4) the link between human capital and firms capacity of survival at both theoretical and empirical grounds.Human Capital, Skills, Economic Performance, Technological Performance, Survival

National Systems of Innovation: a bibliometric appraisal

The literature on NSI is a relatively new field of research with a quite impressive diffusion rate in the last 15 years. Although the concept of NSI is nowadays widely used both in academic and policy contexts, and a set of comprehensive theoretical surveys were published in the most recent years, no ‘quantitative’ survey exists on this matter. The present paper aims to fill this gap. We offer a complementary, ‘quantitative’, description of the state-of-the-art in the literature resorting to bibliometric methods. Our exercise shows that the time evolution of articles published was quite irregular, and that the NSI contributions have not converged to an integrated framework. We further evidence that historically detailed descriptions on NSI à la Freeman are rare, and analyses using more rigorous and diversified quantitative methodologies for assessing the performance of NSI are on demand. The huge increase in the share of ‘Conceptual/critical meta-literature on NSI’ in the latter (2001-2007) periods interestingly documents the conceptual dynamism and methodological-analytical challenges faced presently by NSI approach.National Systems of Innovation, Bibliometrics, Econlit

Mapping the (In)visible College(s) in the Field of Entrepreneurship

Despite the vitality and dynamism that the field of entrepreneurship has experienced in the last decade, the issue of whether it comprises an effective network of (in)formal communication linkages among the most influential scholars within the area has yet to be examined in depth. This study follows a formal selection procedure to delimit the ‘relational environment’ of the field of entrepreneurship and to analyze the existence and characterization of (in)visible college(s) based on a theoretically well-grounded framework, thus offering a comprehensive and up-to-date empirical analysis of entrepreneurship research. Based on more than a thousand papers published between 2005 and 2010 in seven core entrepreneurship journals and the corresponding (85 thousand) citations, we found that entrepreneurship is an (increasingly) autonomous, legitimate and cohesive (in)visible college, fine tuned through the increasing visibility of certain subject specialties (e.g., family business, innovation, technology and policy). Moreover, the rather dense formal links that characterize the entrepreneurship (in)visible college are accompanied by a reasonably solid network of informal relations maintained and sustained by the mobility of ‘stars’ and highly influential scholars. The limited internationalization of the entrepreneurship community, reflected in the almost total absence of non-English-speaking authors/studies/outlets, stands as a major quest for the field.Invisible College; Entrepreneurship; Bibliometrics

What Type of Firm Forges Closer Innovation Linkages with Portuguese Universities?

Using large-scale survey data for firms located in Portugal, we analyze which firm characteristics are conducive to establishing contacts with universities. Although almost half of the firms surveyed stated they had established some contacts with universities in the period 2001-2003, only a few (22%) consider universities an important source of knowledge and information for their innovation activities. Our analysis indicates that the firms’ propensity to draw on each of the Portuguese universities is explained by the characteristics of the different firms and their regional and industrial patterns. An unambiguous and statistically robust finding is that proximity matters highly in firmsuniversities linkages – our estimations reveal that firms are more likely to contacts universities located nearby.

How Has the Portuguese Innovation Capability Evolved? Estimating a Time Series of the Stock of Technological Knowledge, 1960-2001

The importance of promoting innovation has been elevated up to a status of official standard since the Lisbon European Summit in 2000. Here research and development (R&D) was singled out as an essential element of the foundation on which innovation could be built. R&D has been a growing area of investigation namely at level of firms micro studies aimed at uncovering firms’ innovation capability. At the macro level, the relevance of R&D for countries’ innovation capability has been, in a dynamic perspective, more often presumed rather than effectively tested. This latter limitation is, to a large extent, explained by the paucity of aggregated continuous time series on innovation indicators specifically those based on R&D expenditures. This paper aims at filling this gap by providing an estimate of the Portuguese innovation capability over the two last four decades based on the accumulated R&D efforts. Such indicator, albeit preliminary, will desirably endorse new investigation on the Portuguese catching-up process and, in this way, might inform present and future public programs related to R&D policies in particular and innovation policies in general.Innovation; R&D expenditures; measurement, economic growth

Human Capital and Corruption: A microeconomic model of the bribes market with democratic contestability

To overcome market failures society creates common laws that stimulate or penalize individual actions, the enforcement of which depends on the actions of public authorities who may be susceptible to corruption. We model this behaviour for an autocracy versus a democracy, using a microeconomic framework. We assume that in an autocracy rulers have a monopoly over the bribes market, whereas in a democracy conflicting groups compete in the bribes market. The models constructed produce results that are compatible with the well-known stylized facts, namely that (1) in a democracy the level of corruption is lower than in an autocracy, although still positive, that (2) in environments where the level of human capital is higher, regimes are closer to democracies and the level of corruption is lower, and that (3) the level of corruption is higher in more regulated economies.

The importance of Intermediaries organizations in international R&D cooperation: an empirical multivariate study across Europe

Despite the large number of publications related to business cooperation in R&D and the wide perception of the importance of intermediary institutions in the R&D cooperation process, empirical studies on its role are scarce, scattered and fragmented. Moreover, the academic work developed in this area is basically of a theoretical nature, whereas the international perspective of R&D cooperation is seldom approached. Departing from a unique database that includes 473 R&D cooperation projects developed within the 6th Framework Programme, involving firms and intermediaries from all European Union countries, this paper gauges the determinants of the importance attached to Intermediaries, through a direct survey to the organizations involved. Based on an estimation of the multivariate model, this study demonstrates that the importance given to Intermediaries depends more on project features than on the characteristics of the participating organizations. In particular, the nationality of participating organizations and the promoter emerged with a strong explanatory power: ceteris paribus, projects with at least one participant from the United Kingdom tend to assign greater importance to intermediaries in international R&D cooperation. Unambiguously, results evidence that the innovating capacity of an organization emerges (both positively and significantly) associated with a greater importance attached to Intermediaries.R&D Cooperation; Intermediaries; International projects; Europe

One size does not fit all… An economic development perspective on the asymmetric impact of Patents on R&D

Innovation is the building block of competitive advantages and thus economic policies are increasingly focused on creating stimulus to increase a country’s innovative performance and growth potential, namely through knowledge accumulation in general and R&D in particular. In this context, current policy trend seems to support the strengthening of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), in particular, patent protection, with the argument that positive effects will emerge and would be extensive to all countries regardless their level of development. In this paper we question this “one size fits all” policy and assess how patent thicket affects knowledge productive investment taking into account countries’ development levels. Based on a panel of 95 countries over a ten-year period (1997-2006), our results show that patents have asymmetric impacts across countries development stages, evidencing pervious effects on technological leaders and positive ones on some laggards. Such evidence sustains that innovation policies be adjusted to countries development stages.growth models; R&D; patents; economic development

Does Patenting negatively impact on R&D investment?An international panel data assessment

Although the conventional R&D-patents relationship is a long stand and relatively undisputed issue within the innovation literature, the reverse causality, in particular, the potential for a negative impact of patents over R&D has only recently received wide attention boosting interesting (mainly) theoretical debates. The macroeconomic perspective on this issue, however, remains largely unexplored. In fact, no evidence exists that ruled out the possibility of asymmetric effects of patents on R&D in accordance to the level of GDP in general, and to ‘convergence clubs’ in particular. Using panel data estimation methods on a sample of 88 countries, over an eight-year period (1996-2003), and controlling for clubs of convergence to account for differences on countries’ stages of economic development, we found mix support to the negativity of patent on R&D investment. The accumulated patents positively impact on R&D intensity for the set of less developed countries whereas no statistically significant effect emerges in the case of higher developed converge clubs; restricting the highest developed convergence club down to countries with a R&D intensity above 3%, the negativity reverse causality arises, corroborating the asymmetric impact of patents on R&D investment. We further demonstrate that albeit causality appears to be stronger in the most intuitive appealing traditional direction, evidence supports the theoretical conveyed double causality between R&D and Patent.Patents; R&D; panel data; convergence clubs