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Does Innovation Stimulate Employment? A Firm-Level Analysis Using Comparable Micro-Data from Four European Countries

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  • Rupert Harrison
  • Jordi Jaumandreu
  • Jacques Mairesse
  • Bettina Peters

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of process and product innovations introduced by firms on employment growth in these firms. A simple model that relates employment growth to process innovations and to the growth of sales separately due to innovative and unchanged products is developed and estimated using comparable firm-level data from France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Results show that displacement effects induced by productivity growth in the production of old products are large, while those associated with process innovations, which are likely to be compensated by price decreases, appear to be small. The effects related to product innovations are, however, strong enough to overcompensate these displacement effects.

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  • Rupert Harrison & Jordi Jaumandreu & Jacques Mairesse & Bettina Peters, 2008. "Does Innovation Stimulate Employment? A Firm-Level Analysis Using Comparable Micro-Data from Four European Countries," NBER Working Papers 14216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14216
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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