Productivity Challenge: the Role of Technology Standards in Innovation and Internationalisation

技术创新是生产力的关键驱动力。与-à-vis相比，英国（和一些欧洲国家）的生产率增长明显较弱，这与信息通信技术（ICT）传播较慢以及经济部门缺乏统一的数字化机会有关。技术标准在技术扩散中发挥着重要作用，对创新、国际化和随之而来的生产率增长具有重要意义。英国标准协会（BSI）和商业、能源和工业战略部（BEIS）最近委托进行的一项研究表明，在1921年至2013年期间，标准支持了英国37%的年度劳动生产率增长。（约占年GDP增长的28%）。最近的学术研究也强调了开发开放技术标准作为促进生产力、创新和企业盈利能力的重要性。然而，标准-生产力关系背后的商业层面机制仍然是一个黑盒子——本研究试图通过考虑两个主要渠道来解决这一差距，从标准中学习可以实现绩效提升，即通过催化创新和国际化活动。该博士项目将为标准和技术主导的生产率增长提供新的见解，这是许多不同影响因素之间复杂的相互作用，包括创新投入、知识扩散、市场激励、经济地理和制度治理。博士候选人将与李博士和battisti教授密切合作，进行全面的文献综述和计量经济学分析，利用大规模的二级企业数据集，如英国创新调查（以及国家统计局安全研究服务的其他微型企业数据集）。该项目还将使用Searle中心技术标准和标准制定组织数据库，这是西北大学（美国）收集的关于标准和企业参与标准制定的最全面的数据（Baron和Spulber， 2018），以及专利和商标等知识产权数据。最后，该项目将与英国国家标准机构BSI密切合作，为设计有效的标准提供重要的治理或政策影响，这些标准将加速技术的传播，从而提高企业绩效。博士项目将对学术文献做出重大贡献。它还有望实现与业务实践（通过从标准中学习对效率收益的更深入理解）和政策机构（通过标准开发的生产力增长和治理）的高影响和更广泛的参与。

Technological innovation is a key driver of productivity. The apparently weaker productivity growthexperienced in the UK (and some European countries) vis-à-vis North America has been linked to slowerdiffusion in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and the lack of uptake of digitisationopportunities uniformly across economic sectors.Technology standards play a significant role in technology diffusion with important implications forinnovation, internationalisation and attendant productivity growth. A recent study commissioned by theBritish Standards Institution (BSI) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)suggests that standards supported 37% of UK annual labour productivity growth over the 1921-2013 period(i.e., approximately 28% of annual GDP growth). Recent academic research has also highlighted theimportance of developing open technology standards as a spur to productivity, innovation and firmprofitability. However, business-level mechanisms underlying the standards-productivity relationshipremain a black box - a gap this research seeks to address by considering two predominant channels wherebylearning from standards can enable performance gains, viz. by catalysing innovation and internationalisationactivities.This PhD project will offer novel insight into standards and technology-led productivity growth, which is acomplex interplay between many distinct influences including innovative inputs, knowledge diffusion,market incentives, economic geography and institutional governance. Working closely with Dr Li and ProfBattisti, the PhD candidate will conduct a comprehensive literature review and econometric analyses,drawing on large-scale secondary firm-level datasets such as the UK Innovation Survey (and other microbusiness datasets via the Secure Research Service by ONS). This project will also use the Searle CentreDatabase on Technology Standards and Standard Setting Organisations - the most comprehensive dataseton standards and firm participation in standards development collected by the Northwestern University (US)(Baron and Spulber, 2018), as well as data on intellectual property such as patents and trademarks. Finally,this project will be carried out in close collaboration with BSI, the UK's national standards body, to yieldsignificant governance or policy implications for designing effective standards which expedite the diffusionof technologies to boost firm performance.The PhD project will provide a significant contribution to the academic literature. It is also anticipated toachieve high impact and wider engagement with business practices (via a deeper understanding ofefficiency gains through learning from standards) and policy bodies (via productivity growth andgovernance of standards development).