This paper presents a simple model for analysing the contribution of investments in physical and institutional infrastructure to the transition process. In addition to the direct cost savings, infrastructure investment generates important indirect effects, or transition impacts. The model shows...

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between "dirty" (internal combustion engine) and "clean" (e.g. electric and hybrid) patents across 80 countries over several decades. We show that...

Our results on the relationship between R&D spillovers and cooperation in R&D suggest that it is necessary to distinguish different aspects of external information flows. We construct firm-specific measures of incoming spillovers and appropriability from survey data on Belgian manufacturing...

Successful innovation depends on the development and integration of new knowledge in the innovation process. In order to innovate successfully, the firm will combine different innovation activities. In addition to doing own research and development, firms typically are engaged in the acquisition...

We explore heterogeneities in the determinants of innovating firms’ decisions to engage in R&D cooperation, differentiating between three types of cooperation partners: suppliers and customers (vertical cooperation), competitors (horizontal cooperation), and universities and research...

In this Paper we carefully link knowledge flows to and from a firm’s innovation process with this firm’s investment decisions. Three types of investments are considered: investments in applied research, investments in basic research, and investments in intellectual property protection. Only...

This paper develops a framework to analyze the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization decisions of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we equate with publicly available information. Decentralized control, on the...

The paper contributes to the debate on cumulative advantage effects in academic research by examining top performance in research and its persistence over time, using a panel dataset comprising the publications of biomedical and exact scientists at the KU Leuven in the period 1992-2001. We study...

This Paper presents an econometric analysis of firm and industry characteristics conducive to cooperation with universities, using Community Innovation Survey data for Belgium. We find that large firms are more likely to have cooperative agreements with universities. These agreements are formed...

The literature on within-firm organizational change and productivity suggests that firms can make more efficient use of certain technologies if complementary forms of organization are adopted. This issue may be of even greater importance for the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement...