Technology and employment: Mass unemployment or job creation? Empirical evidence from European patenting firms
Vincent Van Roy, Dániel Vértesy, Marco Vivarelli
Research Policy · 2018 · Volume 47 · Issue 9
DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.06.008
Abstract
Highlights • This paper explores the possible job creation effect of innovation activity. • It analyzes a unique panel dataset of about 20,000 European patenting firms over the period 2003–2012. • Firm-level innovative activity is proxied by citation-weighted patents. • GMM-SYS estimations show a labor-friendly nature of innovative activity. • Results are statistically significant in high-tech, but not significant in low-tech manufacturing and service sectors. Abstract This paper explores the possible job creation effect of innovation activity. We analyze a unique panel dataset covering almost 20,000 patenting firms from Europe over the period 2003–2012. The main outcome from the proposed GMM-SYS estimations is the labor-friendly nature of innovation, which we measure in terms of forward-citation weighted patents. However, this positive impact of innovation is statistically significant only for firms in the high-tech manufacturing sectors, while not significant in low-tech manufacturing and services.
Keywords
Technological change, Patents, Innovation, Employment, GMM-SYS
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