Absorptive capacity is one of the most influential concepts in the management and innovation literature. First introduced by Cohen and Levinthal (1989), it is typically defined as a set of ...organizational routines and processes that allow firms to assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge. An aspect that has been ignored by the literature on absorptive capacity is the nature of the knowledge being absorbed. This paper suggests that the learning strategies underpinning absorptive capacity adapt to the type of external knowledge they are more likely to get exposure to and as a result, not all the firms appear to benefit from the same type of external knowledge for the same level of absorptive capacity. To this purpose, we explore how firm-level absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between rent and pure R&D spillovers on the one hand and firm-level turnover on the other in three economic areas (Europe, Japan and US). The empirical analysis uses a dataset (sourced from the EU R&D investment scoreboards) made of 879 worldwide R&D-intensive manufacturing firms. Given the panel data structure of the sample, econometric techniques that deal with unobserved heterogeneity as well as weak exogeneity are employed. The empirical results suggest for the same level of absorptive capacity, firms in economic areas that are closer to the world technology frontier tend to benefit more from pure (knowledge) spillovers than from rent spillovers. Vice versa, firms located in areas that are not on the technology frontier appear to benefit mostly from rent spillovers that travel along the supply chain. These results suggest that absorptive capacity changes with the type of knowledge they may get exposed to.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of the knowledge diffusion process in employment effects of sustainable development investments for large international firms. We present an empirical ...analysis based upon a dataset composed of worldwide Research and Development (R&D) -intensive firms over the period 2002–2010. In order to identify the technological relatedness measure between the firms, we use the friendly environmental patents’ distribution. The drivers of labor innovation effects are identified as a complex combination of job displacement and compensation forces of innovation. Two research questions are investigated: first, we wonder whether green economy investments stimulate firm-level jobs within three different environmental contexts: water, waste and energy; second, we would like to learn the extent to which the knowledge diffusion is an important channel supporting labor in the environmental context, by analysing the impact of intra-industry externalities. From the empirical results, we can observe that environmental spillovers have a negative impact, by confirming the prevalence of the displacement effect. This finding is extremely important for policy implications. Indeed, not only economic incentives to allow the transition to cleaner technologies are required, but also stronger actions to favor job creation relative to environmental activities are needed for a full sustainable achievement of firms.
Ensuring sustainable transition from more to less polluting technologies has become an area of increasing interest to academics and policymakers alike over the recent years. Environmental innovations ...play a key role in this transition. Still, to date relatively little empirical research has been undertaken on the topic. This applies particularly to the potential impact of knowledge spillovers stemming from environmental innovation, termed here as environmental knowledge spillovers (ES), on firms' productivity; a research gap explored in this paper. The focus is laid on three economic areas (Europe, Japan and USA), over the period 2002–2017. Additionally, firms' technological diversity, institutional quality, corporate taxes and the stringency of environmental policy are taken into account to estimate their role in facilitating firms' technical efficiency. The findings indicate that ES affect firms' productivity significantly and positively in all the investigated economic areas, whereas technological diversity increases technical efficiency for Japanese and European, but decreases it for American firms. The findings also show how the stringency of environmental policy (positively), institutional quality (positively) and corporate taxes (negatively) affect firms’ technical efficiency.
•Technical efficiency of international firms was investigated.•The impact of environmental spillovers on firms' productivity is positive.•The impact of technological diversity on efficiency depends on the country.•Stringency of environmental policy and institutional quality increase efficiency.•Corporate taxes decrease efficiency.
The aim of this paper is that of contributing to existing literature on the relationship between environmental innovation and productivity. Generally, environmental innovation (clean) has a lower ...return than non-environmental one (dirty) in the short run, because of higher compliance costs for regulations. However, the positive effects of policy-induced clean innovations on productivity will be observed in the medium-long run. Since we lack empirical studies on this topic in developing countries, we try to fill this gap for Russia country. Firstly, we investigate whether there is a complementary link or a crowding-out effect between dirty innovation and clean one. Secondly, we identify the extent to which this effect can be sensitive to type of environmental activity. In particular, the paper provides both a theoretical model and an empirical analysis, based upon an unbalanced dataset composed of 85 Russian regions for the period 2010–2015. In order to measure the clean innovation, we take into account both the share of organizations engaged in environmental innovations and share of organizations engaged in reducing CO2 ‘footprint’ (total CO2 production), or engaged in reducing soil, water, noise, or air pollution, or engaged in recycling of waste, water and materials. The empirical results of a panel data model show that the impact of environmental innovations on Russian regions' productivity is positive. This finding could be important in terms of policy implications.
•We use data on 65 Russian regions for the period 2010–2015 for analysing the relationship between environmental innovation and productivity;•We develop a theoretical framework where total output index follows two distinctive dealings: a first, where varieties of types of green knowledge capital combine with physical and human capital, and a second one with no direct investment in green knowledge capital;•In order to measure the clean innovation, we take into account both the share of organizations engaged in environmental innovations and share of organizations engaged in reducing CO2 ‘footprint’ (total CO2 production), or engaged in reducing soil, water, noise, or air pollution, or engaged in recycling of waste, water and materials.•The empirical results show that the impact of environmental innovations on regional productivity in Russia is positive.
The purpose of this paper is to establish if Marshallian and Jacobian knowledge spillovers affect job creation in the green energy sector. Whether these two effects exist is important for the number ...of jobs created in related fields and jobs pushed away in other sectors. In the analysis, the production efficiency, in terms of jobs and job spillovers, from inventions in solar, wind and energy efficiency, is explored through data envelopment analysis (DEA), based on the Malmquist productivity index, and tobit regression. A panel dataset of American and European firms over the period of 2002–2017 is used. The contribution to the literature is to show the role of the spillovers from the same technology sector (Marshallian externalities), and of the spillovers from more diversified activity (Jacobian externalities). Since previous empirical evidence concerning the innovation effects on the production efficiency is yet weak, the paper attempts to bridge this gap. The empirical findings suggest negative Marshallian externalities, while Jacobian externalities have no statistical impact on the job creation process. The findings are of strategic importance for governments who are developing industrial strategies for renewable energy.
Technological innovation could affect climate change in multiple ways. On the one hand, technological innovation promotes economic growth and energy consumption, increasing carbon emissions. On the ...other hand, environmental innovations are devoted to reducing the impact of economic activity on climate change. This paper explores the impact of climate change in three economic areas (Europe, Japan and the USA) from 2002 to 2017 of two different innovation variables: the total firms' R&D investments and the knowledge innovation spillovers in the energy field. The findings indicate that the overall R&D process is detrimental to climate change variables, but the knowledge diffusion process of energy innovations positively impacts climate change mitigation. Policy implications are also related to institutional variables connected to environmental regulations.
•Technological innovation could affect climate change in multiple ways.•Technological innovation promotes economic growth and energy consumption.•The R&D process is detrimental to climate change variables.•The knowledge diffusion process of energy innovations positively impacts climate change mitigation.
Using a sample of firms over the 2002–2010 period relative to the US, Europe, and Japan, this paper investigates the effects of control of corruption on firms’ efficiency. Our econometric analysis is ...developed into two main steps. In the first step, we rely on the application of the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) to estimate firm-level efficiency. We then regress the derived efficiency scores against the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) control of corruption indicator, through an Instrumental Variable approach, where the ICRG index is instrumented using a measure of ethnolinguistic fractionalization. The evidence reported in the paper indicates that improved control of corruption systematically enhances firms’ efficiency. We also rely on a direct approach, in which we assess the impact of corruption on R&D expenditures and the number of registered patents and show that improved control of corruption stimulates both of these dimensions of innovation, though the impact is higher, in magnitude and significance, for patents. The evidence reported in this paper, which is robust to alternative specifications of the production technology, to an alternative instrumentation strategy and to the aggregation of firm-level information, brings relevant implications in terms of policy.
This paper explored the extent to which the climate change could affect economic performance for large enterprises in the world through the process of knowledge diffusion in the energy sector. There ...is a theoretical dichotomy between studies to understand if and how economies react to climate change both at macro and micro level. The economic analysis of climate change effects is important to demonstrate that production is associated to world climate and to implement an opportune framework for modelling the economic damages. In this way, new sustainable strategies for increasing efficiency in the use of energy can be suggested by policy makers. Because of environmental externalities produced by the economic activities of companies, the analysis of technological diffusion processes play a crucial role in analysing the economic impact of the climate change. In this perspective, this paper intends to fill two gaps in the literature: firstly, it sheds more light on the sensitivity of the economic performance of companies to climate change; secondly, it analyses the role of knowledge spillovers in a relevant field of cleaner production, which is that of energy. Indeed, the empirical evidence concerning the climate change effects in energy technology through knowledge spillovers is yet poor. The econometric analysis considered a sector-based panel dataset for the USA, Japan and the following European countries: France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland and Denmark, over the time span 2002–2014. The results showed a significant impact of climate change on firms’ productivity and the spillovers play an important role in this process. The findings should have relevant policy implications for each country government in case of development of industrial strategy instruments in cleaner production technology.
•The effect of climate change on firms’ productivity was investigated.•Technological proximity matrix was developed taking into account the energy patents.•Results are important in terms of policy implications for cleaner production.
The main objectives of this study are to take into account the effects of COVID-19 on labor market functioning, and to evaluate the effects of policies regarding working time reduction, in terms of ...both containing the spread of infection and economic activity. Accordingly, we describe a macroeconomic model wherein we test the effects of reducing working hours in the Keynesian unemployment framework, which comprises a fixed prices and wages regime, and a consumption demand that is dependent on salaries and autonomous demand components. Moreover, we also describe a neoclassical unemployment framework, wherein the labor market is only governed by dynamic demand forces. Theoretical results show that, according to the epidemiological phase, a reduction in working hours may be a good policy for containing the virus and improving employment in the Keynesian framework when established conditions are maintained. In the neoclassical framework, a work sharing policy will fail if some conditions do not occur, and it could cause an increase in the spread of the virus when a reduction of epidemic containment measures occurs. Employment will increase when the pandemic ends. A numerical simulation confirms that a reduction in working hours could reduce virus diffusion, but only under established, constrained parameters in both frameworks.
In modern developed economies, one of the primary objectives is to manage the transition from polluting to cleaner technologies as efficiently as possible. By now, in the current empirical ...literature, one can identify technological spillovers from environmental innovations as a major driver of this process. Specific energy policy aspects connected with industry behaviour have yet to be explored. The aim of this paper is to investigate energy efficiency via environmental innovation and the resulting degree of resilience and adaptation of both developed and developing countries. The work applies the non-parametric DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) framework and Tobit analysis. For this scope, it is built a panel dataset made of some 5000 observations based on energy policy and sustainable development variables for 136 OECD and non-OECD countries. The results show that knowledge spillovers from environmental innovations reduce inefficiency and therefore strengthen the resilience of economies that decide and manage to invest adequately in the transition to more sustainable technologies. Besides, OECD countries improve their energy efficiency scores over time, whilst non-OECD countries do not. This implies that sustainable technologies transition is made more efficient by environmental innovation but the process is fostered by disposing of a resilient economic system – hence, vulnerability can affect the transition. These hypotheses lead to important economic, social and environmental implications for energy policy modelling.
•Domestic energy efficiency is assessed for 136 OECD and non-OECD countries.•The energy efficiency-energy resilience linear relationship is verified.•Extensive panel data econometrics, data imputation, DEA and Tobit analysis are used.•Knowledge spillovers and environmental innovation foster energy adaptation.•Clean energy transition investments and policies are key to sustainable development.
PDF
