Innovating firms and aggregate innovation

We develop a parsimonious model of innovating firms rich enough to confront firm-level evidence. It captures the dynamic behavior of individual heterogeneous firms, describes the evolution of an industry with simultaneous entry and exit, and delivers a general equilibrium model of technological change. While unifying the theoretical analysis of firms, industries, and the aggregate economy, the model yields insights into empirical work on innovating firms. It accounts for the persistence over time of firms’ R&D investment, the concentration of R&D among incumbent firms, and the link between R&D and patenting. Furthermore, it explains why R&D as a fraction of revenues is strongly related to firm productivity yet largely unrelated to firm size or growth.Research and development ; Productivity

Empirical patterns of firm growth and R&D investment: a quality ladder model interpretation

We present a model of endogenous Ųm growth with R&D investment and stochastic innovation as the engines of growth. The model for Ųm growth is a partial equilibrium model drawing on the quality ladder models in the macro growth literature, but also on the literature on patent races and the discrete choice models of product diĥrentiation. We examine to what extent the assumptions and the empirical content of our model are consistent with many of the the Ůdings that have emerged from empirical studies of growth, productivity, R&D and patenting at the Ųm level. The analysis shows that the model Ŵs well with a number of empirical patterns such as (i) a skewed size distribution of Ųms with persistent diĥrences in Ųm sizes, (ii) Ųm growth independent of Ųm size, as stated in the so-called Gibrat's law, and (iii) R&D investment proportional to sales.

Innovating Firms and Aggregate Innovation

We develop a parsimonious model of innovating firms rich enough to confront firm-level evidence. It captures the dynamic behavior of individual heterogenous firms, describes the evolution of an industry with simultaneous entry and exit, and delivers a general equilibrium model of technological change. While unifying the theoretical analysis of firms, industries, and the aggregate economy, the model yields insights into empirical work on innovating firms. It accounts for the persistence over time of firms' R&D investment, the concentration of R&D among incumbent firms, and the link between R&D and patenting. Furthermore, it explains why R&D as a fraction of revenues is strongly related to firm productivity yet largely unrelated to firm size or growth.

R&D investment responses to R&D subsidies: A theoretical analysis and a microeconometric study

Subsidies to the Norwegian high-tech industries have traditionally been given as "matching grants", i.e. the subsidies are targeted, and the firms have to contribute a 50 % own risk capital to the subsidized projects. Our results suggest that grants do not crowd out privately financed R&D, but that subsidized firms do not increase their privately financed R&D either. Hence, the own risk capital seems to be taken from ordinary R&D budgets. We also investigate possible long-run effects of R&D subsidies, and show that conventional R&D investment models predict negative dynamic effects of subsidies. Our data, however, do not support this claim. On the contrary, there are indications of a positive dynamic effects, i.e. temporary R&D subsidies seem to stimulate firms to increase their R&D investments even after the grants have expired. We propose learning-by-doing in R&D activities as a possible explanation for this, and present a theoretical analysis showing that such effects may alter the predictions of the conventional models. A structural, econometric model of R&D investments incorporating such learning effects is estimated with reasonable results.Technology policy; R&D subsidies; matching grants; short run additionality; long run additionality; Norwegian IT-industry

Relative Convex Hull Determination from Convex Hulls in the Plane

A new algorithm for the determination of the relative convex hull in the plane of a simple polygon A with respect to another simple polygon B which contains A, is proposed. The relative convex hull is also known as geodesic convex hull, and the problem of its determination in the plane is equivalent to find the shortest curve among all Jordan curves lying in the difference set of B and A and encircling A. Algorithms solving this problem known from Computational Geometry are based on the triangulation or similar decomposition of that difference set. The algorithm presented here does not use such decomposition, but it supposes that A and B are given as ordered sequences of vertices. The algorithm is based on convex hull calculations of A and B and of smaller polygons and polylines, it produces the output list of vertices of the relative convex hull from the sequence of vertices of the convex hull of A.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, Conference paper published. We corrected two typing errors in Definition 2: $I_S$ has to be defined based on $O_S$, and $I_E$ has to be defined based on $O_E$ (not just using $O$). These errors appeared in the text of the original conference paper, which also contained the pseudocode of an algorithm where $I_S$ and $I_E$ appeared as correctly define

Rhythm Politics in a Changing Brazil: A Study of the Musical Mobilization of Voters by Bolsonaro and Haddad in the 2018 Election

This article investigates the role of music in presidential election campaigns and political movements inspired by theoretical arguments in Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis, John Dewey ́s pragmatist rethinking of aesthetics and existing scholarship on the politics of music. Specifically, it explores how musical rhythms and melodies enable new forms of political awareness, participation, and critique in an increasingly polarized Brazil through an ethnomusicological exploration of how left-wing and right-wing movements used music to disseminate politics during the 2018 election that culminated in the presidency of Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Three lessons can be learned. First, in Brazil, music breathes life, energy, and affective engagement into politics—sung arguments and joyful rhythms enrich public events and street demonstrations in complex and dynamic ways. Second, music is used by right-wing and left-wing movements in unique ways. For Bolsonaro supporters and right-wing movements, jingles, produced as part of larger election campaigns, were disseminated through massive sound cars in the heart of São Paulo while demonstrators sang the national anthem and waved Brazilian flags. In contrast, leftist musical politics appears to be more spontaneous and bohemian. Third, music has the ability to both humanize and popularize bolsonarismo movements that threaten human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities, among others, in contemporary Brazil. To contest bolsonarismo, Trumpism, and other forms of extreme right-wing populism, we cannot close our ears and listen only to grooves of resistance and songs of freedom performed by leftists. We must also listen to the music of the right