Understanding the spanish business innovation gap: the role of spillovers and firms’ absorptive capacity

Paloma Lopez-Garcia () and José Montero ()
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José Montero: Banco de España

No 1015, Working Papers from Banco de España

Abstract: This paper investigates whether the existence of knowledge spillovers, differences in the capacity of f rms to assimilate them and disparities in some human resource management practices are related with the decision to innovate of Spanish f rms. In order to do this, we employ data from the “Central de Balances” database, which covers both manufacturing and services f rms during the period 2003-2007, and use an estimator proposed by Wooldridge (2005) for dynamic random effects discrete choice models. The empirical exercise provides evidence on the positive link between spillovers and the innovative behaviour of companies, not just for the knowledge generated in the same industry, but also for that generated in the same region or by the public sector. Moreover, this link is stronger for those f rms with a higher capacity to absorb those spillovers. This ability not only works through f rms’ R&D capabilities, but also through such factors as the quality of the labour force, the share of temporary employment and the amount of resources spent in training. In addition to these factors, we f nd that innovation performance exhibits a high degree of inertia. Further, some other observed f rm characteristics, such as size, sales growth, export behaviour, sector capital intensity or f nancial structure variables, are also found to be relevant determinants of the likelihood of innovation.

Keywords: innovation; R&D; spillovers; absorptive capacity; skilled labour; temporary employment; dynamic RE probit model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C25 J24 J6 L00 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2010-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bde:wpaper:1015

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