Skip to main content
Log in

Employment growth and innovation at the firm level

An empirical study

  • Published:
Journal of Evolutionary Economics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We analyze the influence of innovation on growth rates of employment in 859 Dutch manufacturing firms over the period 1983–1988. Whereas the (growth of the) R&D intensity of firms has a slightly negative impact on employment, we find that firms with a high share of product-related R&D (as a proxi of R&D related to industrial activities in an early stage of the life cycle) experienced an above average growth of employment. The same holds for firms which directed their R&D towards information technology. Smaller firms have, ceteris paribus, substantially higher growth rates of employment than their larger counterparts. Against our expectations, R&D cooperation has no significant impact on employment growth. The same holds for activities in the fields of biotechnology and new materials.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Belsley A, Kuh E, Welsch RE (1980) Regression diagnostics. Identifying influental data and sources of collinearity. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • De Wit GR (1990) Technology and employment. A literature survey (in Dutch). OSA werkdocument W70, March, The Hague

  • Evans DS (1987) The relationship between firm growth, size, and age: estimates for 100 manufacturing industries. J Industrial Econ 35:567–581

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman C (1982) The economics of industrial innovation. Pinter, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Judge GG, Carter Hill R, Griffiths WE, Lütkepohl H, Lee T-C (1988) Introduction to the theory and practice of econometrics. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaldor N (1966) Causes of the slow rate of economic growth of the United Kingdom. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinknecht A, Reijnen JON, Verweij JJ (1990) Innovation in the Dutch manufacturing and service industries. A mailing survey (in Dutch). Ministry of Economic Affairs (series: Beleids-studies Technologie en Economie, no. 6, April), The Hague

  • Kleinknecht A (1990) Are there Schumpeterian waves of innovations? Cambridge J Econ 14: 81–92

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinknecht A (1992) A pre-test of innovation survey questions in five countries. Synthesis report for the meeting of the EUROSTAT Task Force “Innovation” on 12 March 1992 at Luxembourg; forthcoming as chapter 7, in: Kleinknecht A, Bain D (eds.) New concepts in innovation output measurement. Macmillan, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Knibbe A, Van den Noord PJ (1983) On the relevance and stability of Verdoorn's law. Research Memorandum, no. 83-31, University of Amsterdam

  • Maddala GS (1983) Limited-dependent and qualitative variables in econometrics. Econometric Society Publication No. 3 CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Utterback JM, Abernathy WJ (1975) A dynamic model of process and product innovation. Omega 3:639–656

    Google Scholar 

  • White H (1982) Maximum likelihood estimation of misspecified models. Econometrica 50:1–25

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brouwer, E., Kleinknecht, A. & Reijnen, J.O.N. Employment growth and innovation at the firm level. J Evol Econ 3, 153–159 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01213832

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01213832

Key words

JEL-classification

Navigation