We analyse the effects of immigration quotas on growth and discounted welfare in a North-South version of the quality ladders growth model. Immigration quotas in the North increase the growth rate of utility for all consumers. However, they lower the static utility level and discounted welfare of Northern workers. Also the discounted welfare of asset owners drops. Hence, unlike in the static mi...

A simple intellectual property rights (IPRs) framework is introduced into a dynamic quality ladder model of technological diffusion between innovating firms in one country and imitating firms in another country. The presence of technological spillovers and feedback effects between firms in the two countries demonstrates that, even when steady state growth increases, transition costs sometimes d...

Corporate Skills as an Ex-Ante Incentive to R&D Investment Using a balanced panel of 215 Italian manufacturing firms over the 1995-2000 period, this paper investigates the determinants of R&D investment at the level of the firm. While finding further support for the well-established technology-push and demand-pull hypotheses, this study also tests the role of skill endowment in increasing a fir...

This paper investigates the relevance of government purchasing behavior for innovationbased economic growth. We construct a parsimonious Schumpeterian growth model in which demand from the public sphere can effectively alter the economy’s rate of technological change. We incorporate results of various empirical studies arguing that public sector demand acts as incentive for private innovation a...

This paper estimates returns to research and development (R&D) in Chinese industry. Using a firm-level dataset on innovation activity in largeand medium-size industrial enterprises during 1991 to 1997 in the Beijing area, we estimate three equations – an R&D expenditure equation, a production function, and a profit function. Panel data estimation methods are applied to a semibalanced data set c...

We exploit the deregulation of interstate bank branching laws to test whether banking competition affects innovation. We find robust evidence that banking competition reduces statelevel innovation by public corporations headquartered within deregulating states. Innovation increases among private firms that are dependent on external finance and that have limited access to credit from local banks...

Measured by per-capita publication measures, Sweden is an academic powerhouse. Hence, its inability to commercialize on these accomplishments is a puzzle. This paper attributes this failure to the top-down nature of Swedish policies aimed at commercializing these innovations as well as an academic environment that discourages academics from actively participating in the commercialization of the...

In pre-industrial Europe, growth was driven by the expansion of trade, and the expansion of trade was driven by falling trading costs. This paper discusses the mechanisms linking these processes–profit-seeking behavior by merchants, changes in the organization of production, technological progress, and urbanization. It then reviews the fluctuations in European economic growth between 1000 and 1...

This paper takes a new look at the e¤ects of mergers on innovation by analysing the relationship between ex-ante technological (and product) relatedness of acquirers and targets and post-merger performances. The analysis is conducted using data on consolidations in the pharmaceutical industry for the period 1988-2004. Empirical results show that merger deals are more likely to be signed between...

The role of geographically mediated knowledge externalities in regional innovation systems has become a major issue in research policy. Although the process of innovation is a crucial aspect of economic growth, the problem of measuring innovation has not yet been completely resolved. A central problem involved in such analysis is the measurement of economically useful new knowledge. In the U. S...