Richard Freeman, Harvard University & NBER
Richard Freeman, Harvard University & NBER
Market Forces and Product Innovation in China
Market Forces and Product Innovation in China
We examine the effect of innovation on sales, productivity, and firm survival, with particular attention to the impact of new products on the sales of older products of the innovating firm and its competitors, using data from China's Annual Survey of Industrial Firms, which asks firms the proportion of annual sales from new products and processes. We find that:
1 –
Chinese firms report substantial sales from new products and processes, which
supports data on R&D spending and patenting that shows China rapidly
improving its innovativeness.
2
– Firms differ greatly in the extent and persistence of innovation, with
concentrations among those who report introducing new products continuously and
those who report never doing so.
3
- New products reduce the sales of an innovators' existing products
(self-competition) and the sales of competitors in the same market while also
increasing the size of the market
4
– Product innovation is associated with higher productivity and a lower hazard
rate of firms exiting the market.
In addition, we will present the results of an analysis of innovations in cell
phones in China that focuses on the improvement in quality of brands over time.
Richard B. Freeman holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University. He is currently serving as Faculty co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School, and is Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance. He directs the National Bureau of Economic Research / Sloan Science Engineering Workforce Projects, and is Co-Director of theHarvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities.
Professor Freeman is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the AAAS. He is currently serving on the AAAS Initiative for Science and Technology. Professor Freeman has served on 12 Panels and Boards of the U.S. National Academy of Science, including The Committee on National Statistics, Panel to Review NCSES Science and Engineering Workforce Surveys, Board of Higher Education and Workforce (BHEW), The Committee on Understanding the Engineering Education-Workforce Continuum (NAE), The Committee on Assuring a Future U.S.-based Nuclear Chemistry Expertise, The Committee on National Statistics Panel on Developing Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators for the Future, The Committee on Capitalizing on the Diversity of the Science and Engineering Workforce in Industry, The Committee on National Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists, The Committee on Demographic and Economic Impacts of Immigration, and the joint NAS, NAE and IM study on Policy Implications of International Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars in the U.S. United States.
Freeman received the Mincer Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Society of Labor Economics in 2006. In 2007 he was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics. In 2011 he was appointed Frances Perkins Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
His recent publications include: Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization (2004), Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the 21st Century (2005), America Works: The Exceptional Labor Market (2007), What Workers Want (2007 2nd edition), What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo American World (2007),International Differences in the Business Practices & Productivity of Firms (2009), Science and Engineering Careers in the United States (2009), Reforming the Welfare State: Recovery and Beyond in Sweden (2010), and Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-based Stock Options (2010), and The Citizen’s Share: Putting Ownership Back Into Democracy(Yale Univ Press 2013).