[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/20005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Local knowledge spillovers and innovation persistence of firms

Author

Listed:
  • Holl, Adelheid
  • Peters, Bettina
  • Rammer, Christian
Abstract
Recent empirical evidence has shown that firm's innovation behavior exhibits high persistency but not much is known about potential contingencies affecting the degree of persistence. This paper focuses on the role of the local knowledge environment and asks how local knowledge spillovers affect firms' innovation persistence. The empirical analysis draws upon a representative panel data set of firms in Germany from 2002-2016, complemented by detailed geographic information of patent activity over discrete distances to proxy local knowledge spillovers. Based on correlated random effects probit models that control for state dependence, unobserved individual heterogeneity and endogenous initial conditions, our results corroborate former evidence that persistency in innovation is driven by true state dependence. More importantly, we find that the local patenting activity positively moderates firms' degree of persistency in innovation behavior. This is a novel firm-level mechanism that can explain the widening of spatial disparities in innovation performance. Estimations with different distance bands show that the strength of knowledge spillovers that contribute to innovation persistence via true state dependence declines rather rapidly with increasing distance.

Suggested Citation

  • Holl, Adelheid & Peters, Bettina & Rammer, Christian, 2020. "Local knowledge spillovers and innovation persistence of firms," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-005, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/214226/1/169095664X.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wladimir Raymond & Pierre Mohnen & Franz Palm & Sybrand Schim van der Loeff, 2010. "Persistence of Innovation in Dutch Manufacturing: Is It Spurious?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 495-504, August.
    2. Tommy Clausen & Mikko Pohjola & Koson Sapprasert & Bart Verspagen, 2012. "Innovation strategies as a source of persistent innovation," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 21(3), pages 553-585, June.
    3. Cefis, Elena & Orsenigo, Luigi, 2001. "The persistence of innovative activities: A cross-countries and cross-sectors comparative analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1139-1158, August.
    4. Feldman, Maryann P. & Audretsch, David B., 1999. "Innovation in cities:: Science-based diversity, specialization and localized competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 409-429, February.
    5. Love, James H. & Roper, Stephen & Du, Jun, 2009. "Innovation, ownership and profitability," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 424-434, May.
    6. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2005. "Simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic, nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 39-54, January.
    7. Martin Woerter, 2014. "Competition and Persistence of R&D," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5-6), pages 469-489, September.
    8. Jaffe, Adam B, 1986. "Technological Opportunity and Spillovers of R&D: Evidence from Firms' Patents, Profits, and Market Value," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 984-1001, December.
    9. Yasusada Murata & Ryo Nakajima & Ryosuke Okamoto & Ryuichi Tamura, 2014. "Localized Knowledge Spillovers and Patent Citations: A Distance-Based Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 967-985, December.
    10. Aija Leiponen & Constance E. Helfat, 2011. "Location, Decentralization, and Knowledge Sources for Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 641-658, June.
    11. Cristiano Antonelli & Francesco Crespi & Giuseppe Scellato, 2013. "Internal and external factors in innovation persistence," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 256-280, April.
    12. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2003. "Geography, Industrial Organization, and Agglomeration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 377-393, May.
    13. Bettina Peters, 2009. "Persistence of innovation: stylised facts and panel data evidence," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 226-243, April.
    14. Guarascio, Dario & Tamagni, Federico, 2019. "Persistence of innovation and patterns of firm growth," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1493-1512.
    15. Peters, Bettina & Roberts, Mark J. & Vuong, Van Anh, 2022. "Firm R&D investment and export market exposure," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    16. Buzard, Kristy & Carlino, Gerald A. & Hunt, Robert M. & Carr, Jake K. & Smith, Tony E., 2020. "Localized knowledge spillovers: Evidence from the spatial clustering of R&D labs and patent citations," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_027 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    19. Paul Geroski & Steve Machin & John Van Reenen, 1993. "The Profitability of Innovating Firms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(2), pages 198-211, Summer.
    20. Dorner, Matthias & Harhoff, Dietmar, 2018. "A novel technology-industry concordance table based on linked inventor-establishment data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 768-781.
    21. Audretsch, David B & Feldman, Maryann P, 1996. "R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 630-640, June.
    22. Sam Tavassoli & Charlie Karlsson, 2018. "The role of regional context on innovation persistency of firms," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 931-955, November.
    23. repec:zbw:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Geroski, P. A. & Van Reenen, J. & Walters, C. F., 1997. "How persistently do firms innovate?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 33-48, March.
    25. Audretsch, David B. & Feldman, Maryann P., 2004. "Knowledge spillovers and the geography of innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 61, pages 2713-2739, Elsevier.
    26. Wallsten, Scott J., 2001. "An empirical test of geographic knowledge spillovers using geographic information systems and firm-level data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 571-599, September.
    27. Cohen, Wesley M & Klepper, Steven, 1996. "A Reprise of Size and R&D," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 925-951, July.
    28. Peter Thompson, 2006. "Patent Citations and the Geography of Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Inventor- and Examiner-added Citations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 383-388, May.
    29. Fred Gault (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14427.
    30. Christian Le Bas & Giuseppe Scellato, 2014. "Firm innovation persistence: a fresh look at the frameworks of analysis," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5-6), pages 423-446, September.
    31. Bottazzi, Laura & Peri, Giovanni, 2003. "Innovation and spillovers in regions: Evidence from European patent data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 687-710, August.
    32. M. S. Gertler & Y. M. Levitte, 2005. "Local Nodes in Global Networks: The Geography of Knowledge Flows in Biotechnology Innovation," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 487-507.
    33. Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), 2015. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 5.
    34. Bersch, Johannes & Gottschalk, Sandra & Müller, Bettina & Niefert, Michaela, 2014. "The Mannheim Enterprise Panel (MUP) and firm statistics for Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-104, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    35. Gillian Bristow & Adrian Healy, 2018. "Innovation and regional economic resilience: an exploratory analysis," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 60(2), pages 265-284, March.
    36. Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1999. "International Knowledge Flows: Evidence From Patent Citations," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1-2), pages 105-136.
    37. Lööf, Hans & Johansson, Börje, 2013. "R&D Strategy, Metropolitan Externalities and Productivity," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 313, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    38. Jorge Niosi & Majlinda Zhegu, 2005. "Aerospace Clusters: Local or Global Knowledge Spillovers?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 5-29.
    39. Bianchini, Stefano & Pellegrino, Gabriele, 2019. "Innovation persistence and employment dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1171-1186.
    40. Gary Chamberlain, 1980. "Analysis of Covariance with Qualitative Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 225-238.
    41. Samuel Kortum & Jonathan Putnam, 1997. "Assigning Patents to Industries: Tests of the Yale Technology Concordance," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 161-176.
    42. Roper, Stephen & Love, James H. & Bonner, Karen, 2017. "Firms’ knowledge search and local knowledge externalities in innovation performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 43-56.
    43. Rammer, Christian & Schubert, Torben, 2018. "Concentration on the few: mechanisms behind a falling share of innovative firms in Germany," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 379-389.
    44. Filippetti, Andrea & Archibugi, Daniele, 2011. "Innovation in times of crisis: National Systems of Innovation, structure, and demand," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 179-192, March.
    45. Davide Castellani, 2017. "The Changing Geography of Innovation and the Role of Multinational Enterprises," John H Dunning Centre for International Business Discussion Papers jhd-dp2017-02, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    46. Harald Bathelt & Patrick Cohendet, 2014. "The creation of knowledge: local building, global accessing and economic development—toward an agenda," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 869-882.
    47. Philip Cooke & Bjørn Asheim & Ron Boschma & Ron Martin & Dafna Schwartz & Franz Tödtling (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Regional Innovation and Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13482.
    48. Adelheid Holl & Ruth Rama, 2016. "Persistence of innovative activities in times of crisis: the case of the Basque Country," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(10), pages 1863-1883, October.
    49. Ada Leiponen, 2000. "Competencies, Innovation And Profitability Of Firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24.
    50. Flaig, Gebhard & Stadler, Manfred, 1994. "Success Breeds Success. The Dynamics of the Innovation Process," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 55-68.
    51. Elena Cefis & Matteo Ciccarelli, 2005. "Profit differentials and innovation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1-2), pages 43-61.
    52. Michael Funke & Annekatrin Niebuhr, 2005. "Regional Geographic Research and Development Spillovers and Economic Growth: Evidence from West Germany," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 143-153.
    53. Heckman, James J, 1991. "Identifying the Hand of the Past: Distinguishing State Dependence from Heterogeneity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 75-79, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Burgi, Constantin & Gorgulu, Nisan, 2021. "The Impact of the Spatial Population Distribution on Economic Growth," Working Papers 17-2021, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    2. Constantin Bürgi & Nisan Gorgulu, 2022. "The Impact of the Spatial Population Distribution on Economic Growth: Evidence from the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 10008, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Davide Antonioli & Sandro Montresor, 2021. "Innovation persistence in times of crisis: an analysis of Italian firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1739-1764, April.
    2. Fontana, Roberto & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2016. "Technological leadership and persistence in product innovation in the Local Area Network industry 1990–1999," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1604-1619.
    3. Tavassoli, Sam & Karlsson, Charlie, 2015. "Persistence of various types of innovation analyzed and explained," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1887-1901.
    4. Rammer, Christian & Schubert, Torben, 2016. "Concentration on the few? R&D and innovation in German firms 2001 to 2013," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-005, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Mañez, J.A. & Love, J.H., 2020. "Quantifying sunk costs and learning effects in R&D persistence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(7).
    6. Marta F. Arroyabe & Martin Schumann, 2022. "On the Estimation of True State Dependence in the Persistence of Innovation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(4), pages 850-893, August.
    7. Christian Rammer & Jan Kinne & Knut Blind, 2020. "Knowledge proximity and firm innovation: A microgeographic analysis for Berlin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(5), pages 996-1014, April.
    8. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    9. Erika Raquel Badillo & Rosina Moreno, 2014. "“Are R&D collaborative agreements persistent at the firm level? Empirical evidence for the Spanish case”," IREA Working Papers 201410, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Mar 2014.
    10. Claudia Pigini & Alessandro Sterlacchini & Francesco Valentini, 2023. "Persistence Of R&D Intensities In The World'S Top Investors In R&D," Working Papers 480, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    11. Josep Tomàs-Porres & Agustí Segarra-Blasco & Mercedes Teruel, 2023. "Export and variability in the innovative status," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(2), pages 257-279, June.
    12. Ganter, Alois & Hecker, Achim, 2013. "Persistence of innovation: Discriminating between types of innovation and sources of state dependence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1431-1445.
    13. Bianchini, Stefano & Pellegrino, Gabriele, 2019. "Innovation persistence and employment dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1171-1186.
    14. Tobias Schlegel & Curdin Pfister & Dietmar Harhoff & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2022. "Innovation effects of universities of applied sciences: an assessment of regional heterogeneity," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 63-118, February.
    15. Antonelli, Cristiano & Crespi, Francesco & Scellato, Giuseppe, 2012. "Inside innovation persistence: New evidence from Italian micro-data," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 341-353.
    16. Christian Le Bas & Caroline Mothe & Thuc Uyen Nguyen-Thi, 2015. "The differentiated impacts of organizational innovation practices on technological innovation persistence," Post-Print halshs-01497289, HAL.
    17. Annekatrin Niebuhr & Jan Cornelius Peters & Alex Schmidke, 2020. "Spatial sorting of innovative firms and heterogeneous effects of agglomeration on innovation in Germany," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(5), pages 1343-1375, October.
    18. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Guarascio, Dario & Tamagni, Federico, 2019. "Persistence of innovation and patterns of firm growth," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1493-1512.
    20. repec:zbw:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Rituparna Kaushik & Sourabh Bikas Paul, 2022. "Do Competition Improve Persistence in Innovation Effort? Sectoral Patterns and Evidence from India," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 259-296, June.
    22. Antonelli Cristiano & Crespi, Francesco & Scellato, Giuseppe, 2013. "Path Dependent Patterns of Persistence in Productivity Growth," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 201310, University of Turin.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    innovation; persistence; location; knowledge spillovers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20005. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.