Knowledge and Productivity in the World's Largest Manufacturing Corporations

I examine the relationship between the characteristics of firm knowledge in terms of capital, diversity and relatedness, and productivity. Panel data regression models suggest that unlike knowledge diversity, knowledge capital and knowledge relatedness explain a substantial share of the variance of firm productivity. Activities based on a set of related technological knowledge are more productive than those based on unrelated knowledge because the cost of co-ordinating productive activities decreases as the knowledge used in these activities becomes integrated efficiently. The contribution of knowledge relatedness to productivity is significantly higher in high-technology sectors than in other sectors.knowledge, productivity, large corporations, knowledge measurement, panel data

Knowledge and Productivity in the World's Largest Manufacturing Corporations Level:Panel Data analysis on Compustat and Patent data

This paper examines the relationship between the characteristics of firm knowledge in terms of capital, diversity and relatedness, and productivity. Panel data regression models suggest that unlike knowledge diversity, knowledge capital and knowledge relatedness explain a substantial share of the variance of firm productivity. Activities based on a related set of technological knowledge are more productive than those based on unrelated knowledge because the cost of co-ordinating productive activities decreases as the knowledge used in these activities is being integrated efficiently. The impact of knowledge relatedness on productivity in high-technology sectors is higher than in other sectors.productivity; intangible assets; market value; panel data

Product entry in a fast growing industry: the LAN switch market

We provide empirical evidence on market positioning by firms, in terms of market niche, distance from technological frontier and dispersion. We focus on the switch industry, a sub-market of the Local Area Network industry, in the nineties. Market positioning is a function of the type of firms (incumbents versus entrants), market size and contestability and firm competencies. We find that incumbents specialise in high-end segments and disperse their product in a larger spectrum of the market. Instead, entrants focus on specific market niches. Market size, market contestability and firm competencies are also important determinants of product location.switch industry, markets, competition, firm capabilities, product entry

The Dynamics of Innovation Networks

We analyse the changing contribution of networks to the innovative performance of 30 pharmaceutical companies from 1989 to 1997. Count data models show that collaborations with universities and biotechnology companies are important determinants of the firms' innovative performance, but their respective contributions diverge when industry matures. Larger firms enjoy a significant size advantage and in-house research activities are highly significant. Returns to scale in research are decreasing over time while the size advantage is increasing. The changing contribution of networks to knowledge production suggests that these are phase-specific, which has substantial managerial and policy implications.pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, innovative processes, networks

University Patenting and its Effects on Academic Research

The paper explores the possible consequences for academic research of increased patenting in European universities. It underlines that most of the policy literature refers to the advantages of university patenting without balancing them against the costs or the risks involved in the activities. We provide a brief description of university patenting activity in Europe examining both university-owned patents and university-invented patents. The review of the literature reveals that unlike the United States, little is known in Europe about the changes taking place in public research as a result of increased patenting and increased institutionalisation of patents. We discuss possible analytical approaches to identify both short-term and long-term effects. Concluding remarks addressing the key issues for future empirical assessments are presented in the last section.University patenting, university-industry relationships, technology transfer, European universities.

Knowledge and productivity in the world's largest manufacturing corporations

This paper develops a model linking firm knowledge with productivity. The model captures three characteristics of firm knowledge (capital, diversity and relatedness) that are tested on a sample of 156 of the world’s largest corporations. Panel data regression models suggest that unlike knowledge diversity, knowledge capital and knowledge relatedness explain a substantial share of the variance of firm productivity. Relatedness matters because it lowers coordination costs between heterogeneous activities. Consequently, the traditional econometric specification has repeatedly underestimated by 15 percent the overall short-run contribution of intangible assets to firm productivity. This underestimation becomes fiercer in high-technology sectors

Intangible Assests and Market Value: Evidence from Biotechnology Firms

We examine the relationship between the characteristics of the firms' knowledge base in terms of knowledge capital and knowledge integration and the stock market value of 99 firms active in biotechnology during the nineties. Panel data regression models show that our measure of knowledge integration better explains the variance of a firm's market value than the more conventional variable of knowledge capital. This econometric relationship becomes stronger as the technology cycle reaches more mature phases. Meanwhile, profitable and research-intensive firms reach higher levels of market value.Knowledge integration; intangible assets; market value; biotechnology; GMM.

Determinants of Renewable Energy Innovation: environmental policies vs. market regulation

This paper carries out a comprehensive analysis of renewable energy innovations considering four mechanisms suggested by innovation models: 1. policy-inducement; 2. market structure; 3. demand and social cohesion- mainly proxied by income inequality; 4. characteristics of country knowledge base. For OECD countries and years 1970-2005, we build a unique dataset containing time-varying information on quality-adjusted patent production in renewable energy, the latter being a function of environmental policies, green R&D, entry barriers, knowledge stock, knowledge diversity and income inequality. We develop count data models using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to account for endogeneity of policy support. Our synthetic policy index positively affects innovations especially in countries with deregulated energy markets and low entry barriers. The effect of entry barriers and inequality is negative and of similar magnitude as that of policy. Product market liberalization positively affects green patent generation, especially so when ambitious policies are adopted, when the initial level of public R&D expenditures and when the initial share of distributed energy generation is high. Our results are robust to alternative specifications, to the inclusion of technology-specific effects and to the use of quality-adjusted patents as dependent variables. In the latter case, the estimated effect of lowering entry barriers and of knowledge diversity almost double on citation count relatively to patent count.renewable energy technology, patent, environmental policies, product market regulation, inequality