 Concentration on the few: mechanisms behind a falling share of innovative firms in GermanyChristian Rammer and Torben Schubert Research Policy, 2018, vol. 47, issue 2, 379-389 Abstract: Innovation activities in the German business sector showed two opposing trends over the past two decades: While total innovation expenditures grew substantially, the number of firms conducting innovation activities fell sharply. In this paper, we explore the mechanisms behind the declining trend in the share of innovation active firms. Considering both input (R&D activities) and output (introduction of innovations), we model innovation decisions as a multi-stage process using continuous-time Markov chain analysis. We base our analyses on a 14-year panel from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey. Our results show that smaller firms and firms in sectors with less innovation competition are more likely to stop innovating. We also show that better financial situation and public funding can mitigate the trend towards a falling share of innovating and R&D-performing firms. Keywords: R&D; Innovation; Concentration; SMEs; Decline (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:47:y:2018:i:2:p:379-389 DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2017.12.002 Access Statistics for this article Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier |
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