Thanks to ICT innovations and new management practices, service-sector firms can more easily scale by establishing multiple businesses in different locations.

Fact of the Week: Increasing the Number of Markets a Firm Enters by 10 Percent Boosts Its Share of Employment in R&D by 0.35 Percentage Points

Large bodies of research have established that firms can benefit from the spillover effects of innovation by other firms and universities, but significantly less is known about the extent to which firms benefit from R&D conducted by governments outside of academia. This year, the U.S. government launched the Unleashing American Innovation initiative, attempting to maximize private use of public research, which a new paper indicates is badly needed.

Fact of the Week: New, Knowledge-Intensive Enterprises That Use Innovations From Government-Funded Programs Add Employees and Grow Sales Faster

U.S. society captured four-fifths of the total returns on R&D (with the private sector gaining one-fifth) in the 2010s, up from three-fourths in the 1980s, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.

Fact of the Week: The Ratio of Societal to Private Returns From Investment in R&D Increased From 3:1 in 1980 to 4:1 in 2015

A recently released National Bureau of Economic Research working paper finds that larger firms’ greater returns on R&D activities is derived from their ability to capture a greater proportion of the value created by their inventions. 

Fact of the Week: Large Firms’ Innovation Advantage Stems From Greater Commercialization Capabilities

Fact of the Week: Large Firms' Innovation Advantage Stems From Greater Commercialization Capabilities

As industries become more concentrated, they maintain greater ability to secure returns to the scientific research they produce, while avoiding the disincentive to R&D created by many free-riding competitors.

Fact of the Week: Firms in Concentrated Industries Publish 3.5 Times More Research Than Firms in Competitive Industries

The study found that tech transfer across firms can lead to increased entrepreneurship; technologies that are seen as unprofitable by one can be used by others to create new ideas and industries.

Fact of the Week: Firms Are More Than 3 Percent More Likely to Sell Technology to Other Firms If the Technology Hasn’t Yet Been Commercialized

Fact of the Week: Firms Are More Than 3 Percent More Likely to Sell Technology to Other Firms If the Technology Hasn't Yet Been Commercialized

Businesses in the European Union lag U.S. businesses not just in the amount they invest in R&D, but also in their capabilities to transform these investments into productivity gains, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.

Fact of the Week: U.S. High-Tech Firms Gain Two-And-A-Half Times More Productivity Than European High-Tech Firms From The Same Level Of R&D Investment

A recent study highlights the critical role the U.S. government played in financing and developing patented technologies coming out of regional technology clusters.

Fact of the Week: R&D Spending During WWII Spurred a Sustained Wave of Innovation That Lasted Through the 1970s

One of the simplest measures of innovation is the rate at which firms change the goods or services they offer in response to market demands or to take advantage of new technologies, but this phenomenon differs drastically by industry. From 2013 to 2015, 10.4 percent of all U.S. firms introduced new or significantly improved projects—but the figure was 24.3 percent for manufacturing firms versus 9.2 percent of nonmanufacturing firms.

Fact of the Week: US Innovative Firms Operate in Too Few Markets Relative to the Social Optimum

Related

Fact of the Week: Increasing the Number of Markets a Firm Enters by 10 Percent Boosts Its Share of Employment in R&D by 0.35 Percentage Points

Fact of the Week: New, Knowledge-Intensive Enterprises That Use Innovations From Government-Funded Programs Add Employees and Grow Sales Faster

Fact of the Week: The Ratio of Societal to Private Returns From Investment in R&D Increased From 3:1 in 1980 to 4:1 in 2015