Irene Bertschek

Product and Process Innovation As a Response To Increasing Imports and Foreign Direct-investment

This paper analyzes the hypotheses that imports and inward foreign direct investment have positive effects on the innovative activity of domestic firms because competition on the domestic market is thereby increased and domestic firms have to perform more efficiently to maintain their market position. Chamberlains random effects probit approach, which may account for individual heterogeneity depending on exogenous variables, is used to analyze a panel data set containing 1,270 firms of the German manufacturing industry from 1984 to 1988. It turns out that both import share and foreign-direct-investment-share have positive and significant effects on product and process innovations. Copyright 1995 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Convenient estimators for the panel probit model

The paper shows that several estimators for the panel probit model suggested in the literature belong to a common class of GMM estimators. They are relatively easy to compute because they are based on conditional moment restrictions involving univariate moments of the binary dependent variable only. Applying nonparametric methods we discuss an estimator that is optimal in this class. A Monte Carlo study shows that a particular variant of this estimator has good small sample properties and that the efficiency loss compared to maximum likelihood is small. An application to the product innovation decisions of German firms reveals the expected efficiency gains.

The Adoption of Business-to-Business E-Commerce: Empirical Evidence for German Companies

Although in its infancy, one promising application of Internet technology for firms is so-called Internet commerce or electronic commerce. This paper analyses the determinants of B2B (business-to-business) adoption borrowing from the literature on the adoption of new technologies and considering factors like firm size, corporate status, human capital and international competitive situation. An ordered probit model is applied to a data set containing about 3,000 enterprises from the German manufacturing industry and the German services sector in the year 2000. We find positive and significant effects of firm size, the share of highly qualified employees and the export share. An IT-intensive production process enhances the probability of a broad use of B2B e-commerce. An important influence on the use of B2B is the bandwagon effect, implying that firms are more likely to use this new Internet application if others within the same industry likewise do it. We find no significant effects of firm age and of the fact that a firm belongs to a group of companies as measures of a firms flexibility and financial power.

On Nonparametric Estimation of the Schumpeterian Link between Innovation and Firm Size: Evidence from Belgium, France, and Germany

This paper analyses the Schumpeterian link between innovative activity and firm size by means of the nonparametric Nadaraya-Watson estimator and of the partially linear approach by Speckman. Four data sets referring to the manufacturing industries of three European countries are available for the analysis. We demonstrate how nonparametric methods can produce more reliable conclusions than conventional methods. For this purpose, the roles of bandwidth choice, wild bootstrap, density estimation and trimming are studied. For the German data set of 1984 and for the French data set we find that small firms and large firms are more innovative than firms of intermediate size while the relation is rather hump-shaped for Germany 1989 and decreasing for Belgium. Including an additional parametric component into the estimations based on the French data contributes considerably to the explanation of innovative activity without affecting the U-shaped link between innovation and firm size.

Productivity Effects of IT-Outsourcing: Semiparametric Evidence for German Companies

This paper analyzes the relationship between IT-outsourcing and labor productivity of 1142 firms from German manufacturing and service industries surveyed in 2000. An endogenous switching regression model takes into account that firms might follow different productivity regimes depending on whether or not they source out IT-tasks. Two semiparametric approaches are presented and applied to the data. They allow the outsourcing decision to nonlinearly depend on firm size. The empirical results show that firms with IT-outsourcing do not differ significantly from non-outsourcing firms with respect to the partial production elasticities of the input factors labor, IT-investment and non-IT-investment. However, firms without IT-outsourcing turn out to produce more than those sourcing out.

Trade and Technology: New Evidence on the Productivity Sorting of Firms

Recent advances in trade theory suggest novel gains from trade liberalisation through technology adoption by expanding exporting firms. These theories rely on strict assumptions regarding the productivity sorting of firms with different technology use. In this paper, we test the sorting of German firms using data on actually implemented technologies. Our analysis distinguishes between manufacturing and service industries. In case of the former, we confirm the sorting pattern of the most productive firms being high-tech exporters, followed by low-tech exporters and then domestic low-tech firms. For services, the evidence is mixed and potentially depends on the tradability of the considered services.

Do Older Workers Lower IT-Enabled Productivity?

Summary The paper provides empirical evidence for the question whether firms’ IT-enabled labour productivity is affected by the age structure of the workforce. We apply a production function approach with heterogenous labour to firm-level data from German manufacturing and services industries. We find that workers older than 49 are not significantly less productive than prime age workers, whereas workers younger than 30 are significantly less productive than prime age workers. Older workers using a computer are significantly more productive than older non-computer users. The positive and significant relationship between labour productivity and IT intensity is not affected by the proportion of older workers.

The Economic Impacts of Broadband Internet: A Survey

Abstract We provide a structured overview of the quantitative research on the economic impacts of broadband internet. Differentiating between wireline and wireless technologies as well as broadband availability and broadband adoption, respectively, we review studies investigating the impacts on economic growth, employment and regional development as well as productivity and firm performance. Eventually, the survey does not only allow the identification of main research gaps but also provides useful information for policy makers on the significance and importance of communication networks for social welfare.

The economic impacts of telecommunications networks and broadband internet: A survey

We provide a structured overview of the quantitative literature on the economic impacts of telecommunications networks and broadband internet. Differentiating between wireline and wireless technologies as well as broadband availability and broadband adoption, respectively, we review studies investigating the impacts on economic growth, employment and regional development as well as productivity and firm performance. Eventually, the survey does not only allow the identification of main research gaps but also provides useful information for policy makers on the significance and importance of communication networks for social welfare.

The ZEW ICT survey 2002 to 2015: Measuring the digital transformation in German firms

Modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been proliferating through the entire business sector over recent decades. This increasing digitalization is having a substantial impact on economic activity and is continuously changing the nature of production processes and our day-to-day working life. Since 2002, the ICT Survey carried out by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) has tracked the diffusion and use of ICT in different industries within the German economy. Further surveys were conducted at irregular intervals in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2015. The survey was designed by ZEWs Research Department Information and Communication Technologies. The data was collected via computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) by infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences. The central aim of the survey is twofold: Firstly, a representative picture of the use of ICT by German firms is obtained. Secondly, taking account of a large set of further firm characteristics it should allow an analysis of the consequences of employing ICT and ICT-related projects with respect to different measures of firm performance.