Allocation of human capital and innovation at the frontier. Firm-level evidence on Germany and the Netherlands.

Autor/inn/en	Bartelsman, Eric; Dobbelaere, Sabien; Peters, Bettina
Institution	Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit
Titel	Allocation of human capital and innovation at the frontier. Firm-level evidence on Germany and the Netherlands. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Verteilung von Humankapital und Innovationen an der Grenze. Unternehmensbefunde von Deutschland und den Niederlanden.
Quelle	Bonn (2013), 62 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	IZA discussion paper. 7540
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Forschung und Entwicklung; Produktinnovation; Produktivitätseffekt; Produzierendes Gewerbe; Prozessinnovation; Beschäftigungsstruktur; Qualifikationsstruktur; Dienstleistungsbereich; Internationaler Vergleich; Innovation; Deutschland; Niederlande
Abstract	This paper examines how productivity effects of human capital and innovation vary at different points of the conditional productivity distribution. Our analysis draws upon two large unbalanced panels of 6,634 enterprises in Germany and 14,586 enterprises in the Netherlands over the period 2000-2008, considering 5 manufacturing and services industries that differ in the level of technological intensity. Industries in the Netherlands are characterized by a larger average proportion of high-skilled employees and industries in Germany by a more unequal distribution of human capital intensity. Except for low technology manufacturing, average innovation performance is higher in all industries in Germany and the innovation performance distributions are more dispersed in the Netherlands. In both countries, we observe non-linearities in the productivity effects of investing in product innovation in the majority of industries. Frontier firms enjoy the highest returns to product innovation whereas the most negative returns to process innovation are observed in the best-performing enterprises of most industries. In both countries, we find that the returns to human capital increase with proximity to the technological frontier in industries with a low level of technological intensity. Strikingly, a negative complementarity effect between human capital and proximity to the technological frontier is observed in knowledge intensive services, which is most pronounced for the Netherlands. Suggestive evidence for the latter points to a winner-takes-all interpretation of this finding. (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku).
Erfasst von	Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Nürnberg
Update	2014/1