Productivity and Innovation

Low funding jeopardises the European Commission’s innovation missions

Semih Akcomak, Bastiaan Overvest, 22 March 2019

The European Commission plans to spend about €120 billion on research and innovation under mission-oriented programmes between 2021 and 2027. This column shows that planned spending is small both relative to the total R&D spending of individual EU countries and relative to previous missions. In addition, there is a lack of clarity on how missions will be determined, designed and governed. Experiences in other countries suggest that the Commission should find new ways of increasing funding to missions and increase clarity on the implementation of mission-oriented policies.

The impact of AI and information technologies on worker stress

Isamu Yamamoto, 14 March 2019

The adoption of new information technologies such as AI in more workplaces is influencing not just employment and wages, but worker well-being such as job satisfaction, stress, and health. Surveying approximately 10,000 workers in Japan, this column analyses the impact of new information technologies on the nature of tasks performed by workers, job satisfaction, and work-related stress. It finds that AI adoption contributes to both greater job satisfaction and increased stress, and considers approaches to maximise the positives of new technologies adoption while minimising its negative side effects.

Innovation policy for Europe

, 08 March 2019

The European Community's FRAME project, of which the CEPR has been a partner, recently held its final conference in London. Tim Phillips talked to some of its key participants, including Román Arjona (Chief Economist, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission) and Jonathan Haskel (Member, Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee), about what FRAME's research into innovation tells us, and how it might be translated into policy.

CEPR is a partner of the FRAME Project, which is co-ordinated by ZEW. The CEPR team is led by Diego Comin, a Research Fellow in its Macroeconomics and Growth Programme. The FRAME project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the grant agreement No #727073.

The Schumpeterian role of banks

Christian Keuschnigg, Michael Kogler, 04 March 2019

Only strong banks can fulfil their Schumpeterian role by efficiently reallocating credit. The column argues that high capital standards, efficient bankruptcy laws, and a lower cost of bank equity improve credit reallocation and thereby support the productive specialisation of the economy. An efficient banking sector also magnifies the gains from trade liberalisation by easing the process of capital reallocation.

Immigrant networking

Sari Pekkala Kerr, William Kerr, 01 March 2019

Despite recent research looking at the growing contribution that immigrants make to innovation and entrepreneurship in the US, little is known about if or how the processes immigrants and natives use in this regard differ. This column uses surveys of individuals working in shared workspaces in Boston and St Louis to examine how immigrant entrepreneurs network and how their networking behaviour differs from natives.The findings suggest that immigrants take more advantage of networking opportunities at the workspaces, especially around the exchange of advice.

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