dc.description.abstract | Chapter 1: In the introductory chapter, I place my thesis in an empirical research tradition going back to the
mid-19S0s, investigating the economics of technological change. Key issues have been the private and social
returns to R&D, and the scope for technology policy in enhancing economic growth. It is widely accepted that
the social returns to R&D is greater than the private returns, and that public support for R&D may be welfare
improving. At the same time, a number ofissues regarding the extent of the market failure and the governments'
ability to improve on the market solution are unresolved. The main part of the introduction summarizes the
following four chapters of the thesis. At the end I briefly reflect on my findings and their relevance for
technology policy.
Chapter 2: Economists have recently drawn attention to the importance of generic or general purpose
technologies (GPTs) and their significance for economic growth. An interesting part of this research identifies
coordination problems in the introduction of GPTs, and the potentially large benefits in coordinating research
and product development. Thinking about information technology as a GPT, with the associated coordination
problems, seems to fit well with the motivation behind governmental support schemes to IT and related hightech
industries in Norway. The first part of this essay focuses on a series of such IT-programs that have been
implemented in Norway from the early 1980s with the objective of coordinating the development of information
technology and its application throughout the economy. The second part of the essayexamines in some detail the
largest of these programs through its planning and implementation stages, and emphasizes how closely it is
connected to recent economic analysis ofGPTs. The third part examines to what extent these governmental plans
and subsidy schemes have been successful in creating economic results in terms of growth and profits in the IT
and IT-related industries. The final part of the essay discusses some lessons about the problems with technology
policy at a practicallevel.
Chapter 3: A number of market failures have been associated with R&D investments, and significant amounts
of public money have been spent on programs to stimulate innovative activities. This essay reviews some recent
microeconometric studies evaluating effects of government-sponsored commercial R&D, and pays particular
attention to the conceptual problems involved. Neither the firms receiving support, nor those that do not receive
support, constitute random samples. Furthermore, those not receiving support may be affected by the programs
due to spillover effects which often are the main justification for R&D subsidies. Constructing a valid control
group under these circumstances is difficult, and the essay draws attention to some recent advances in
econometric methods for evaluation studies based on non-experimental data. The essayalso discusses some
analytical questions beyond these estimation problems that need to be addressed in order to assess whether R&D
support schemes can be justified. For instance, what are the implications if firms' R&D investments are
complementary to each other, and to what extent are potential R&D spillovers internalized in the market?
Chapter 4: Labor mobility is often considered to be an important source of knowledge spillovers, making it
difficult for firms to appropriate returns to R&D investments. In this essay I argue that inter-firm transfers of
knowledge embodied in people should be analyzed within a human capital framework. Testing such a
framework using a matched employer-employee data set, I find that the technical staff in R&D-intensive firms
pays for the knowledge they accumulate on the job through lower wages in the beginning of their career. Later
they earn a return on these implicit investments through higher wages. This suggests that the potential
externalities associated with labor mobility, at least to some extent, are internalized in the labor market.
Chapter 5: Most R&D projects fail from a commercial point ofview, and technological shifts may quickly turn
even successful innovations into failure. It is, however, possible that projects which fail commercially produce
knowledge with some social value. Such knowledge is likely to be embodied in workers or teams ofworkers. In
order to evaluate the social returns to research, it is therefore desirable to trace workers as they move across
firms and industries. In this essay I utilize a large matched employer-employee data set and test for the existence
of potential knowledge spillovers transmitted through the labor market. The specific case analysed is a series of
Norwegian IT-programs so far considered unsuccessful, but which recently have been linked to the rise of a new
generation ofsuccessful IT-firms. It has been argued that know-how and networks built up in leading companies
during the programs still 'fertilize' the Norwegian IT-industry. I find little support for this claim. Workers with
experience from companies that received R&D subsidies were largely re-employed in IT-industries, but they
have not outperformed similar workers without such experience. An analysis of firms that are spin-offs from
formerly subsidized IT-firms reveals that they perform below, rather than above, average. | en |