We test whether intellectual property rights (IPRs) foster or hinder innovation by estimating IV structural equations for a large sample of Swiss firms. We find that better appropriability conditions at the industry level raise the number of competitors. However, conditional on the given...

There is growing evidence that firms increasingly adopt open innovation practices. In this paper we investigate the impact of two such external knowledge acquisition strategies, buy and cooperate, on firm's product innovation performance. Taking a direct (productivity) approach, we test for...

The study provides evidence with respect to some topics of inter- and intra-firm diffusion of digital technology so far neglected in research. The analysis is based on a slightly extended version of the encompassing model of Battisti et al. (2009). We use a unique dataset that provides for the...

This paper develops a model of the relationship between the age of a dictator and economic growth. In the model a dictator must spread the resources of the economy over his reign but faces mortality and political risk. The model shows that if the time horizon of the dictator decreases, either...

This paper investigates how rms' productivity is a ected by the relationship between organiza- tional practices and workers' level of education. Using rm-level panel data covering the period 2002 to 2008, I estimate complementarities among workers' level of education and a large set of...

The present paper studies the relationship between R&D investment and firm productivity growth by explicitly accounting for non-linearities in the R&D-productivity relationship and inter-sectoral firm heterogeneity. In order to address these issues, we employ a two step estimation approach, and...

The present paper estimates and decomposes the employment effect of innovation by R&D intensity levels. Our micro-econometric analysis is based on a large international panel data set from the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. Employing flexible semi-parametric methods - the generalised...

Environmental benefits only unfold if green (environmentally friendly) technologies are widely diffused and intensively deployed within a firm. We investigate how different types of policies - directly and in combination - affect the number of different green energy technologies adopted by a...

We propose a new patent-based measure of knowledge spillovers that calculates technological proximity based on firms that were identified via patent backward citations links. We argue that this measure has a couple of advantages as compared to the 'standard' measure proposed by Ja e: First, it...

The present study investigates the effects of energy-related technologies on economic performance at firm level. We distinguish clearly between adoption and use of energy-related technologies (process innovation in the broad sense) and product innovation in energy-related fields. We take into...