Hongbo Duan

How do prolific inventors impact firm innovation in ICT: implications from patent co-inventing network

Prolific inventors not only own higher innovation productivity, but also impact other inventors through innovation networks. This paper contributes to existing literatures by differentiating prolific inventors from non-prolific inventors in the network context, and making an empirical analysis of the effect of prolific inventors. We use the patent filing data from the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) in investigating the effect of prolific inventors on firm innovation. We use the patents filed by 10 largest Information & Communication Technology firms during 1995–2010 and establish the innovation network with patent co-inventing data. The empirical result shows that prolific inventors positively impact their partners who used to co-invent at least one patent with them. Furthermore, prolific inventors positively impact inventors who do not have a close contact with them. The closer the inventors are to prolific inventors, the more patents they produce. Members are thereby more likely to gather around prolific inventors and formulate intensive clusters. In networks centered by prolific inventors, useful knowledge outweighs redundant knowledge, and high clustering that facilitates knowledge flow is proved to be beneficial; while in networks without prolific inventors, high clustering may not be beneficial as there are less inventors holding advanced knowledge. Policy implications are discussed at the end of this study.

Emissions and temperature benefits: The role of wind power in China.

Background As a non‐fossil technology, wind power has an enormous advantage over coal because of its role in climate change mitigation. Therefore, it is important to investigate how substituting wind power for coal‐fired electricity will affect emission reductions, changes in radiative forcing and rising temperatures, particularly in the context of emission limits. Methods We developed an integrated methodology that includes two parts: an energy‐economy‐environmental (3E) integrated model and an emission‐temperature response model. The former is used to simulate the dynamic relationships between economic output, wind energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; the latter is used to evaluate changes in radiative forcing and warming. Results Under the present development projection, wind energy cannot serve as a major force in curbing emissions, even under the strictest space‐restraining scenario. Chinas temperature contribution to global warming will be up to 21.76% if warming is limited to 2 degrees. With the wind‐for‐coal power substitution, the corresponding contribution to global radiative forcing increase and temperature rise will decrease by up to 10% and 6.57%, respectively. Conclusions Substituting wind power for coal‐fired electricity has positive effects on emission reductions and warming control. However, wind energy alone is insufficient for climate change mitigation. It forms an important component of the renewable energy portfolio used to combat global warming. HighlightsWe assess the warming benefits associated with substitution of wind power for coal.The effect of emission space limits on climate responses is deeply examined.China is responsible for at most 21.76% of global warming given the 2‐degree target.Wind power alone may not be sufficient to face the challenge of climate change.A fertile policy soil and an aggressive plan are necessary to boost renewables.

Small Worldliness, Chinese Culture and Firm Innovation Performance: An Empirical Study based on Patent Collaboration Data of China

China is an Asian country that has a more collectivist culture compared with that of western countries. Furthermore, China is also different from other Asian countries and regions, for example, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, in terms of the social and political context. The small-world network thereby plays quite a different role in innovation in China. This paper expands on the existing studies by examining the impact of the small-world network on firm innovation performance using both quantity and quality measurements. With the intra-firm level patent collaboration data from China, we find that a more clustered patent collaboration network has a negative impact on firm innovation performance. Patent collaboration networks with greater small worldliness would harm firm innovation performance in China, which is quite different from the role played by small worldliness in western and other Asian countries. The path length has a negative impact, and the size of the connected component has a positive impact on firm innovation, which is similar to the role of small-world networks in western and other Asian countries. Our finding is suggestive to the firm managers who face the collectivist culture of China, which has greater emphasis on hierarchy and bureaucracy.

Existence of Weak Solutions for Second-Order Boundary Value Problem of Impulsive Dynamic Equations on Time Scales

We study the existence of weak solutions for second-order boundary value problem of impulsive dynamic equations on time scales by employing critical point theory.

Balancing China’s climate damage risk against emission control costs

In this study, we incorporate a three-reservoir climate module into our energy-economy-environmental integrated (3E-integrated) system model, in order to estimate the effect of China’s contribution of unilateral emissions on global warming and to weigh the macro-mitigation cost against the risk of damage, and we also explore the role of adaptation in reducing climate change risk. Our results suggest that China’s unilateral emission-control action plays a relatively limited role in mitigating global warming and is not particularly cost-effective, given that the macro-reduction cost is much larger than the benefit in the corresponding climate damage mitigation. Adaptation plays a large role in curbing China’s climate damages and improving the economics of China’s unilateral emission-control actions, and it is little affected by the introduction and option mitigation strategies. To prevent global warming from exceeding critical thresholds, more international collaborations and cooperative efforts are therefore anxiously needed; as for China, bolstering a low-carbon economy and installing an effective mechanism for improving the adaptation level are two feasible options for controlling climate damage risks, given the great uncertainty on the present situation of international cooperation mitigation.