Anna Maria Ferragina

This study contributes to the literature on technology sourcing in multi-location R&D by providing novel regional-level evidence on how green knowledge embedded in host locations shapes the green innovation trajectory of global R&D leaders. Using data from 231 top R&D companies with inventive activities dispersed across 118 European regions over the period 2000–2018, we adopt a two-step empirical strategy combining conditional fixed-effects logistic and Poisson models. The results show that higher green innovation intensity in host regions is significantly associated with both the occurrence and count of green patents by R&D units located within them. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we implement a Control Function Approach (CFA), and validate our findings through extensive robustness checks. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that these results hold only when host regions are foreign, located within the European core area, environmentally “brown” and subject to stricter environmental regulation than firms’ home countries. We also find that local knowledge, rather than neighboring regional innovative activity, drives these patterns. Overall, the findings reveal reverse technological externalities from host contexts to corporate R&D units and underscore the importance of local embeddedness in shaping the environmental direction of corporate innovation. Policy implications point to the strategic role of attracting R&D investments to strengthen regional green knowledge bases and cumulative technological capabilities, while managerial implications emphasize the value of leveraging location-specific conditions to foster sustainable innovation.

Economic shocks are often difficult to predict, as they are independent of the will of the economic agents affected and, therefore, exogenous to their choices. However, the effects of such shocks when they occur impact on national economies, business performance, and employment of individuals, thus shaking countries’ economies, and often with long-lasting effects. Although it is difficult to predict their occurrence, it is possible to withstand the consequences of exogenous shocks and be more resilient should they occur. Investing in order to be at the frontier of innovation is one of the tools that economies can adopt to protect their agents, thus defending them from the downturns that can result from unexpected economic events. In this paper, we study whether being more innovative does protect Italian provinces from the negative effects of exogenous shocks, with a focus on employment levels. The object of the analysis is, more specifically, the role of the innovation stock in protecting provinces’ employment levels from trade and economic shocks. The analysis, conducted in the period 2000–2018, examines the effect of trade shock on Italian provinces’ employment levels, and the role of the innovation stock in preserving those levels. Our results confirm that innovative provinces are more protected from external trade and economic shocks, with this effect being evident in both Southern and Northern regions, and despite the level of internationalization of provinces.

By using panel data on Italian manufacturing firms, this paper contributes to the literature on the nexus between firms’ internationalisation and innovation performance, taking into account the impact of different internationalisation strategies (with a focus on exports, foreign direct investments and outsourcing) on firms’ product and process innovation. Being robust to the implementation of different and complementary methodologies (impact evaluation analysis, multivariate probit and a special regressor approach to instrumental variables), our results suggest that accessing foreign markets through the different strategies considered may ensure different returns in terms of both types of innovation. We find evidence in support of the learning‐by‐exporting literature since exporting shows positive effects on the probability of carrying out both product and process innovation. Moreover, while investing abroad enhances product innovation, suggesting a more market‐seeking oriented strategy (i.e. rather than resource‐seeking), on the contrary, outsourcing raises the probability of introducing process innovation. Our results may prompt further reflections on public policies and on incentives for supporting domestic firms’ internationalisation.

This paper examines the immigration-trade links for OECD countries for the 2000–2015 period. By decomposing the overall effect of the presence of immigrants on the export of the hosting countries according to the methodology proposed by Hummels and Klenow (2005), we investigate if there is a migration-driven increase in the number of export relationships (extensive margin) and/or simply a growth of pre-existing export relationships (intensive margin) decomposed by an increase in quantity and price. We consider the country of origin of immigrants and their level(s) of education. Our results confirm the existence of a pro-export effect of immigrants attributable to the contribution of international networks regarding the reduction in information costs, which is especially strong for developed countries as sources of migration. However, when we look at the heterogeneous impact of different levels of immigrants’ education, we find that the pro-trade effect is due to the contribution of less- and more educated immigrants to the reduction of trade costs, while the medium educated do not spur bilateral trade significantly. We address the potential endogeneity problems by adopting an instrumental variable (IV) approach based on shift-share IV and pull-and-push factors that could induce international migration.

Purpose: This study aims to consider how migrants may act as channel of diffusion of knowledge which contributes to the dynamics of trade and comparative advantages of EU and MENA countries for the period 1990–2015.Design/methodology/approach: Adopting an IV approach and a gravity framework to instrument for migration, the authors document how variations in stocks of migrants coming from (in) countries that are already competitive exporters of a given product impact on the probability that the destination (home) country starts to export competitively new products or succeed in exporting more intensively.Findings: Controlling for potential confounding factors which can be correlated to knowledge flows and productivity shifts, the authors find trade-promoting effects via migration flows (mostly immigration) between the two areas, testing our hypotheses by different technology classes of products and different specifications.Originality/value: The contribution of this work to the literature is threefold. First, by providing evidence on international knowledge diffusion induced by migration flows between MENA and EU regions, like no other work before, the authors document the effects of migration on trade and comparative advantages. Second, unlike standard literature on migration-trade link, the authors focus more on long-term structural changes in comparative advantages than on trade volumes. Third, we exploit how the effect of migration on margins of trade varies according to different types of goods, classified by technological level.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the joint effect of persistency in innovation and export on firms’ total factor productivity. In particular, the aim is to determine if exporting in international markets along subsequent periods, and being also continuously innovating over the same periods, can be associated with increases in firms’ productivity. The underlying idea is that time recurrence of these strategies is related to the firms’ ability to optimize external knowledge flows enhancing their productivity. Design/methodology/approach: By using data on Italian manufacturing firms over the period 1998–2006, the authors distinguish between repeated and temporary exporting firms, as well as repeated and temporary innovators, to test (through two-step system generalized methods of moments) the existence of any combined learning-by-exporting and learning-by-doing effects. Findings: This paper provides empirical findings about persistent innovation efforts being better associated with a permanent presence in foreign markets. More in detail, persistently innovative and exporting firms have better productivity results than persistently exporting (innovating) firms with non-persistent innovation (export). Combining both strategies could be an opportunity to internalize knowledge flows coming from long-lasting exposure to foreign markets. These results hold especially for small firms. Originality/value: The novelty of this paper is twofold. First, the authors argue that the temporal dimension of firms’ exporting and innovating activities may influence firms’ productivity. Second, while previous studies explored the role of export and innovation on productivity in isolation, the authors consider the joint effect of this relationship and also explore it across the temporal dimension finding evidence that they have a positive, reinforced effects if firms implement these activities continuously and jointly. In this case, the effect of innovation and export on productivity is significantly higher than if firms with intermittent strategies do not have the time to internalize knowledge flows coming from participating in export market.