Industrial Research and Innovation Indicators Report of a Workshop (1997) / Chapter Skim
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6 Measuring Outputs and Outcomes of Innovation
6 Measuring Outputs and Outcomes of Innovation
Pages 23-29
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From page 23... ...
Participants emphasized repeatedly that much of the outcome of innovation accrues to society as spillover effects that present considerable measurement challenges. PATENT COUNTS AND PATENT CITATIONS The number of patents issued and the technical and scientific literature citations on the patents are used to develop quantitative measures of innovative output and science-technology linkages.
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From page 24... ...
The front page of U.S. patents contains citations of previous patents and other critical scientific literature purportedly representing the intellectual lineage or prior art of the patented invention and distinguishing it from previous inventions.
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From page 25... ...
The strengths and limitations of patent citation data as an indicator of knowledge flows are given in the text box. Aside from the limitations of patent data generally, this promising line of research is handicapped by a good deal of uncertainty about the origins and motivation of patent citations.
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From page 26... ...
Representation of Innovation Output in the National Accounts Steven Landefeld explained that the national accounts do not really measure the output of R&D or innovative activity because the value of R&D is represented solely by its cost, which is an input to innovation. Landefeld noted that more direct measures of R&D and technological change may require use of nonexpenditure data such as the number of patents, patent applications, R&D personnel, proxies for embodied technological change (e.g., average age of physical capital)
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From page 27... ...
As a result, the development of new measures of innovative output was generally accorded high priority. TECHNOLOGY USE SURVEY DATA The extent to which new technologies are used, the factors influencing their adoption, and the impact of their use on factors such as plant productivity, product quality, workforce skill requirements, and employment, are all outcomes of technological innovation as well as integral parts of the interactive process of innovation.
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From page 28... ...
Adam Jaffe noted that attempts to measure the productivity effects of R&D fail to account for the full impact because approximately two-thirds to three-quarters of R&D is devoted to new product development rather than to process improvement, underscoring the need to develop new measures of product improvement. OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES OCCURRING AS SPILLOVERS A number of workshop participants emphasized the critical importance but enormous difficulty of accounting for the spillover effects of innovation the benefits accruing to other firms and industries without compensation to the innovating firm.
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From page 29... ...
It was suggested that if companies reported on the R&D survey forms the locations of their R&D activities, the data could be matched to Statistical Metropolitan Area (SMA) data to allow better analysis of the extent of local spillovers and the formation and dynamics of innovative, technology-intensive geographic regions.
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