Development Blog Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano
I contributed to the Development Blog with an article on catch up in the wine industry.
Innovation
Global Value Chains and Innovation Systems: Lessons from the Wind Energy Industry in the Basque Country
At Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City.
A paper on the wind energy in the Basque Country was presented at a conference on Latin America’s Prospects for Upgrading in Global Value Chains organized by the OECD, WB, CEPAL, IADB.
Download the pdf, Pres Mexico City 2012-03
Universities in emerging economies: Bridging local industry with international science.Evidence from Chile and South Africa
Cambridge Journal of Economics, 36(3): 679-702
This article is written in collaboration with Elisa Giuliani.
Emerging economies are now becoming more central in global competition. To achieve this, many countries have invested to develop into ‘knowledge economies’. Universities have a role to play in this transformation, both as generators of new knowledge as well as actors that can interact with the local industry and contribute to its innovativeness. This paper explores, using two case studies in the Chilean and South African wine industry, how universities connect international science to domestic industry. It finds that this connection occurs through a few ‘bridging researchers’, who display particular characteristics compared with their colleagues. Bridging researchers are more ‘talented’ than average researchers, both because they publish more in international journals and/or because they have received awards for their academic work. This finding may have significant policy implications, as policies aimed at strengthening the skills of these researchers should be welcomed in catching-up industries.
Per i vini ora il modello è il Cile
Il Sole 24 Ore
The Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore published an article on my book on Innovation and Catching Up: The changing geography of wine production.
Global Value Chains Meet Innovation Systems
World Bank, Washington.
At a Trade Brown Bag Seminar I presented a paper on the relationship between Global Value Chains and Innovation Systems.
Dowload the pdf, Pres World Bank 2011-07
Las Cadenas Globales de valor y sus implicaciones para la competitividad
ORKESTRA Competitiveness Day 2011, San Sebastian.
At the Competitiveness Day in San Sebastian I discussed the relationship between innovation systems and the global value chains.
Download the pdf, Pres ORKESTRA 2011-07
Innovation and Technological Catch-Up. The Changing Geography of Wine Production
A book published by Edward Elgar and edited together with Elisa Giuliani e Andrea Morrison about changing geography in the wine industry.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the supremacy of ‘Old World’ countries (France and Italy) in the international wine market has been challenged by new players, such as Australia, Argentina, Chile and South Africa, which are recording stunning performances in terms both of export volume and value. This book demonstrates that such a spectacular example of catch-up goes beyond simply copying new technologies; it entails creative adaptation and innovation, and introduces a new growth trajectory in which consistent investments in research and science play a key role.
«This book overturns the old paradigm ideas about natural-resource-based activities. It sheds light on the new opportunities for technological dynamism and catching-up by using science to open novel directions in traditional sectors. It should become a classic in what I expect will be a very important academic debate and a new trend in development policy.»
Carlota Perez
Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; Cambridge University and University of Sussex, UK
«This excellent book demonstrates better than any other I know the strengths and limits of the concept of a national system of innovation for understanding economic development today. Any careful student of innovation or development will want to read it.»
Charles Sabel
Columbia Law School, USA
Here you can read the introduction,
The Changing Geography of Wine Production_Intro
Here you can read some reviews of the book,
regional studies,
AAG Review of Books,
Journal of Wine economics,
agriregionieuropa_n28,
Il Sole 24 Ore
You can buy the book here.
Global Value Chains meet Innovation Systems
DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission, Brussels.
My keynote speech at the Final Conference of the Sectoral Innovation Watch.
Download the pdf, Pres Brussels 2011-02
Catching-up Trajectories in the Wine Sector: A Comparative Study of Chile, Italy and South Africa
World Development 38(11): 1588-1602
The article is co-authored with Lucia Cusmano and Andrea Morrison.
From a development perspective an investigation of the changes that have occurred in the wine industry is of particular interest because it provides evidence on how emerging economies have been able to acquire significant shares of the international market in a dynamic sector. Based on novel empirical evidence, this paper shows that emerging countries with diverse institutional models and innovation strategies have actively participated in the process of technological modernization and product standardization. These newcomers in the wine sector have responded particularly effectively to changes in demand, aligning emerging scientific approaches with institutional building efforts and successful marketing strategies.
Why do researchers collaborate with industry? An analysis of the wine sector in Chile, Italy and South Africa
Research Policy, 39(6): 748-761
The paper is in collaboration with Elisa Giuliani, Andrea Morrison and Carlo Pietrobelli.
Research on University-Industry (U-I) linkages and their determinants has increased significantly in the past few years. However, there is still controversy on the key factors explaining the formation of U-I linkages, and especially related to individual researcher characteristics. This paper provides new empirical evidence and, in particular, looks at the importance of researchers’ individual characteristics and their institutional environments in explaining the propensity to engage in different types of U-I linkages. Based on an original dataset, we present new evidence on three wine producing areas – Piedmont, a region of Italy, Chile and South Africa – that have successfully responded to recent structural changes in the industry worldwide. Empirical findings reveal that researchers’ individual characteristics, such as centrality in the academic system, age and sex, matter more than publishing records or formal degrees. Institutional specificities at country level also play a role in shaping the propensity of researchers to engage with industry.
Download the pdf, JA Research Policy 2010-06
Catching up and Sectoral Systems of Innovation: A Comparative Study on the Wine Sector in Chile, Italy and South Africa
World Knowledge Forum, Seoul.
I was invited at a panel on the Economics of Inter- Firm Catch Up discussing how global economic recession, can be an opportunity for late-comers to enter the market and catch up with forerunners.
Download the pdf, Pres World Knowledge Forum 2009-10
Global Value Chains and Technological Capabilities: A Framework to Study Industrial Innovation in Developing Countries
Oxford Development Studies, 36(1): 39-58
The paper is co-authored with Andrea Morrison and Carlo Pietrobelli.
It presents a critical review of the Global Value Chain literature in light of the “Technological Capabilities” approach to innovation in LDCs. Participation in GVC is beneficial for firms in LDCs, which are bound to source technology internationally. However, the issues of learning and technological efforts at the firm-level remain largely uncovered by the GVC literature.
We propose a shift in the empirical and theoretical agenda, arguing that research should integrate the analysis of the endogenous process of technological capability development, of the specific firm-level efforts and of the mechanisms allowing knowledge to flow within and between different global value chains into the GVC literature.