Covid-19 is the first emergency that affected Italy in its regional institutional set-up. Through a qualitative-quantitative analysis of the regional resolutions in 2020, the article proposes a first ...analysis of the regional system. Drawing from their own resources, the regions have deployed 7.3 billion euros, of which two billion is intended for interventions to support families and 5.3 to support the production system. The regions that have implemented the most significant interventions per capita are the Autonomous Provinces, the regions with special statute and the large southern regions, the latter largely drawing on the resources of the structural funds. We observe an evolution in the allocation of resources from general and emergency aspects to specific characteristics of the regional production sectors. The regional system has shown a certain ability to mobilize financial resources and a significant degree of differentiation.
•We theorize a link between unemployment protection (UP) and innovation as mediated by skill diversity.•Literature predicts UP and employment protection (EP) both encourage to learn specific ...skills.•We argue that in the case of diversity, EP should have a weaker, or even negative, effect.•In 25 countries we find a positive effect between UP and innovation mediated by diversity.•Our results indicate that the widespread reduction of UP has hindered innovation.
The diversity of knowledge and skill is an important element of a national system of innovation. We propose a theory of how certain labor market institutions affect diversity, and through that route affect levels of innovation. Specifically, unemployment protection (UP) encourages diversity by reducing the risk burden of a broad range of learning, or human capital investment; for that reason, UP fosters innovation. Employment protection (EP) reduces the risk burden of a much narrower range of learning; for this reason, it will not enhance diversity to the extent UP does, and it may actually depress overall diversity and innovation. Our approach differs from previous research on labor market insurance and skill formation, much of which has dealt with a distinction between general and specific skills, and which has treated the effects of UP and EP as similar. Estimating the effects of UP and EP on patenting for 25 OECD countries over 24 years, we find a positive effect from UP, a negative effect from EP, and evidence that the UP effect is mediated by diversity of skill.
This article addresses the impact of the current economic downturn on innovation across Europe. Using micro- and macro-data, we investigate to what extent some structural characteristics of National ...Systems of Innovation, along with demand, affect firms’ persistency in terms of innovation investment. It emerges that the effects of the economic downturn in terms of firms’ innovation investment are not the same across European countries. The competences and quality of the human resources, the specialization in the high-technology sector, together with the development of the financial system seem to be the structural factors which are able to offset the effect of the economic downturn on innovation investments of firms across Europe. Finally, some considerations about policies during recessions are discussed.
Does it matter whether research is conducted by the private business rather than in universities or government research centres? While most of the attention of science and innovation policy in the ...last decades has explored the relevance of the interconnections between public and business players in enhancing knowledge-based societies, a major trend has been ignored: both the quota of public R&D and its share over the total R&D investment has shrunk in the majority of OECD countries. As a result, a larger fraction of knowledge is today generated in the business sector. We argue that this is a major problem since public research and private research differ along a number of characteristics, e.g. public access, potential for future technological innovations, criteria of resource allocation. This trend can have adverse implications for long-term innovation and economic welfare in our societies. Through the lens of the public goods theory and of the sector of funding and execution of R&D for the period 1981–2013 we try to explain why.
•The quota of public R&D and its share or total R&D has shrunk in OECD countries.•This trend can have adverse implications for innovation and welfare in our societies.•Analytical differences between public- and private-generated knowledge are illustrated.•Through the lens of the public goods theory we explain why.
The article introduces the special section on “University–industry linkages and academic engagements: Individual behaviours and firms’ barriers”. We first revisit the latest developments of the ...literature and policy interest on university–industry research. We then build upon the extant literature and unpack the concept of academic engagement by further exploring the heterogeneity of UI linkages along a set of dimensions and actors involved. These are: (1) Incentives and behaviours of individual academic entrepreneurs; (2) Firms’ barriers to cooperation with public research institutions; (3) Individual behaviours, incentives and organizational bottlenecks in late developing countries. We summarize the individual contributions along these dimensions. There are overlooked individual characteristics that affect the degree of engagement of academics and scholars in cooperating with other organizations, of which gender and the non-academic background of individuals are most crucial. The notion of academic engagement should be enlarged to aspects that go beyond the commercialization or patenting of innovation, but embrace social and economic impact more at large. From the perspective of the firm, barriers to innovation might exert an effect on the likelihood to cooperate with universities and public research institutes, most especially to cope with lack of finance or access to frontier knowledge. We finally propose a research agenda that addresses the challenges ahead.
SUMMARY
The management of the welfare state in a heterogeneous society is a growing challenge in Europe. This paper investigates the relationship between diversity and the welfare state by studying ...the citizens’ satisfaction about public services across European regions; it also establishes a link between research on diversity and the welfare state, and fiscal federalism theory, by focusing on the provision of local public services. We employ region level indicators of the citizens’ perception of local public services, regional autonomy, and regional diversity based on nationalities. We find that i) diversity is negatively correlated with the quality of local public services; and ii) regional autonomy partially improves the quality in the presence of diversity. When using objective measures of public services, the results are less robust; this raises an issue about the citizens’ perception about the functioning of the welfare state in heterogeneous communities which deserves attention from policy makers.
► The 2008 economic crisis has severely reduced the short-term willingness of firms to invest in innovation. ► Before the crisis incumbent firms were more likely to expand their innovation ...investment. ► The crisis has changed the picture with a few, small firms and new entrants “swimming against the stream” as they expand their innovative activities. ► Overall, our findings suggest that during the depression firms’ innovation behaviour is closer. ► To creative destruction, while before the depression there is an overall landscape of creative accumulation.
The 2008 economic crisis has severely reduced the short-term willingness of firms to invest in innovation. But this reduction has not occurred uniformly and a few firms even increased their investment in spite of the adverse macroeconomic environment. This paper, based on the latest three waves of the UK Community Innovation Survey, compares drivers of innovation investment before and during the crisis. We find that the crisis led to a concentration of innovative activities within a small group of fast growing new firms and those firms already highly innovative before the crisis. The companies in pursuit of more explorative strategies towards new product and market developments are those to cope better with the crisis.
Which role do city‐regions play in European innovation network formation? We study the evolution of innovation collaborative networks in European city‐regions outlining two opposite models: in the ...exclusive network model city‐regions establish a closed network of innovators among themselves; in the inclusive network models city‐regions build a network of innovators which includes the peripheral regions. Employing a temporal exponential random graph model on 248 regions for the period 2000–2016, we find that the two models coexist. We conclude that in the EU the city‐regions act as both engines of generation of innovation and integrators of innovation actors.
¿Qué papel desempeñan las ciudades‐región en la formación de redes europeas de innovación? Se estudia la evolución de las redes de colaboración en innovación en las ciudades‐región europeas mediante el esbozo de dos modelos opuestos: en el modelo de red exclusiva, las ciudades‐región establecen entre sí una red cerrada de innovadores; en los modelos de red inclusiva, las ciudades‐región construyen una red de innovadores que incluye a las regiones periféricas. Se empleó un modelo de gráfico aleatorio exponencial temporal en 248 regiones para el periodo 2000–2016 y se encontró la coexistencia de los dos modelos. Se concluye que en la UE las ciudades‐región actúan tanto como impulsoras de la generación de innovación como integradoras de los agentes de innovación.
欧州のイノベーションネットワーク形成において、都市圏はどのような役割を果たしているか。本稿では、正反対の2つのモデルを形成するヨーロッパの都市圏におけるイノベーション共同ネットワークの進化を研究する。排他的ネットワークモデルでは、都市圏はそのイノベーターら自身だけの閉鎖的なネットワークを確立する。包括的ネットワークモデルでは、都市圏は周辺地域を含むイノベーターのネットワークを構築する。2000~2016年までの248の地域に関して、時間指数ランダムグラフモデルを用いた分析から、2つのモデルが共存していることが分かった。EUにおいては、都市圏がイノベーションの創出とイノベーションの主体者の統合の両方の動作主として機能していると結論される。
•Public research exhibits significant different patterns across countries.•We investigate investment in public research as a choice shaped by the political institutions of countries in 41 ...countries.•Public R&D is higher in parliamentary forms of government and proportional electoral rules.•Encompassing civic society organizations increase public research.•Political economy perspective helps explaining different patterns of public research.
Despite a generalised consensus about its economic benefits public research exhibits different patterns across countries. Why do some governments invest in public research more than others? By relying on political economy literature we investigate investment in public research as a choice shaped by the political institutions of countries. Studying a sample of 41 countries we find a robust relationship between public-funded research and parliamentary forms of government, proportional electoral rules, bicameral legislatures, and the presence of encompassing civic society organizations. The political economy perspective helps explaining the different patterns of public research observed in advanced countries and increases the understanding about how research is affected by the civil society.
Filippetti A. and Peyrache A. Labour productivity and technology gap in European regions: a conditional frontier approach, Regional Studies. A conditional frontier approach is proposed to capture the ...role of the technology gap in explaining labour productivity differences in 211 European regions in eighteen countries over the years 1995-2007. Labour productivity growth is driven by capital accumulation and technical change. In lagging behind regions, productivity growth is mainly driven by capital accumulation. The technology gap does not play a role in driving labour productivity growth and remains stable across regions in the considered period. Cohesion policy seems more effective in terms of fixed investment rather than technological capabilities, while technology gap remains a source of unused potential productivity growth.
PDF
