IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/quaeco/v63y2017icp50-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate innovation and economic freedom: Cross-country comparisons

Author

Listed:
  • Zhu, Hui
  • Zhu, Steven X.

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of a country's integrated economic freedom on corporations undertaking innovative activities. Using 5809 firms from 29 countries filed and granted U.S. patents over the 1984–2006 period, we find strong and robust evidence of a positive relationship between corporate innovation and the cross-country differences in economic freedom. This finding suggests that firms domiciled in a country with a sound regulatory system, limited government, regulation efficiency, and open markets facilitate corporations undertaking innovative activities. Specifically, we find that the positive relationship is more pronounced through the channel of labor freedom. This is consistent with the notion that more economic freedom enhances innovation competence in the global market.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhu, Hui & Zhu, Steven X., 2017. "Corporate innovation and economic freedom: Cross-country comparisons," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 50-65.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:63:y:2017:i:c:p:50-65
    DOI: 10.1016/j.qref.2016.04.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062976916300114
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.qref.2016.04.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haibo Zhou & Ronald Dekker & Alfred Kleinknecht, 2011. "Flexible labor and innovation performance: evidence from longitudinal firm-level data," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 20(3), pages 941-968, June.
    2. Philippe Aghion & John Van Reenen & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Innovation and Institutional Ownership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 277-304, February.
    3. Zoltán J. Ács & Colm O'Gorman & László Szerb & Siri Terjesen, 2015. "Could the Irish Miracle be Repeated in Hungary?," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 30, pages 584-603, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    5. Esther Ann Bøler & Andreas Moxnes & Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, 2015. "R&D, International Sourcing, and the Joint Impact on Firm Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3704-3739, December.
    6. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    7. Cornaggia, Jess & Mao, Yifei & Tian, Xuan & Wolfe, Brian, 2015. "Does banking competition affect innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 189-209.
    8. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    9. David Hirshleifer & Angie Low & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "Are Overconfident CEOs Better Innovators?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1457-1498, August.
    10. Hall, B. & Jaffe, A. & Trajtenberg, M., 2001. "The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," Papers 2001-29, Tel Aviv.
    11. Gwartney, James & Lawson, Robert, 2003. "The concept and measurement of economic freedom," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 405-430, September.
    12. Francisco Alcalá & Antonio Ciccone, 2004. "Trade and Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 613-646.
    13. Laura Bottazzi & Giovanni Peri, 2007. "The International Dynamics of R&D and Innovation in the Long Run and in The Short Run," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(518), pages 486-511, March.
    14. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2004. "A PANIC Attack on Unit Roots and Cointegration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(4), pages 1127-1177, July.
    15. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    16. Robert M. Salomon & J. Myles Shaver, 2005. "Learning by Exporting: New Insights from Examining Firm Innovation," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 431-460, June.
    17. Simeon Djankov & Tim Ganser & Caralee McLiesh & Rita Ramalho & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "The Effect of Corporate Taxes on Investment and Entrepreneurship," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 31-64, July.
    18. Thomas J. Chemmanur & Elena Loutskina & Xuan Tian, 2014. "Corporate Venture Capital, Value Creation, and Innovation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(8), pages 2434-2473.
    19. Xuan Tian & Tracy Yue Wang, 2014. "Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 211-255, January.
    20. Jan Bena & Kai Li, 2014. "Corporate Innovations and Mergers and Acquisitions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 1923-1960, October.
    21. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2008. "The law and economics of self-dealing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 430-465, June.
    22. Viral V. Acharya & Ramin P. Baghai & Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, 2014. "Wrongful Discharge Laws and Innovation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 301-346, January.
    23. He, Jie (Jack) & Tian, Xuan, 2013. "The dark side of analyst coverage: The case of innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 856-878.
    24. Anna Bottasso & Carolina Castagnetti & Maurizio Conti, 2015. "R&D, Innovation and Knowledge Spillovers: A Reappraisal of Bottazzi and Peri (2007) in the Presence of Cross‐Sectional Dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 350-352, March.
    25. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    26. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Tian, Xuan & Xu, Yan, 2014. "Financial development and innovation: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 116-135.
    27. Bai, Jushan & Kao, Chihwa & Ng, Serena, 2009. "Panel cointegration with global stochastic trends," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 149(1), pages 82-99, April.
    28. Vivian W. Fang & Xuan Tian & Sheri Tice, 2014. "Does Stock Liquidity Enhance or Impede Firm Innovation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2085-2125, October.
    29. Nam, Dae-il & Parboteeah, K. Praveen & Cullen, John B. & Johnson, Jean L., 2014. "Cross-national differences in firms undertaking innovation initiatives: An application of institutional anomie theory," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 91-106.
    30. Samuel Kyle Jones & Michael Stroup, 2010. "Closed-end country fund premiums and economic freedom," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(21), pages 1639-1649.
    31. Daniel Ferreira & Gustavo Manso & André C. Silva, 2014. "Incentives to Innovate and the Decision to Go Public or Private," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 256-300, January.
    32. R.W. Hafer, 2013. "Economic Freedom and Financial Development: International Evidence," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 33(1), pages 111-126, Winter.
    33. Bernstein, Shai, 2012. "Does Going Public Affect Innovation?," Research Papers 2126, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    34. Erich Weede, 2006. "Economic Freedom and Development: New Calculations and Interpretations," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 26(3), pages 511-524, Fall.
    35. Åsa Johansson & Chistopher Heady & Jens Matthias Arnold & Bert Brys & Laura Vartia, 2008. "Taxation and Economic Growth," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 620, OECD Publishing.
    36. Christian Gengenbach & Franz C. Palm & Jean‐Pierre Urbain, 2006. "Cointegration Testing in Panels with Common Factors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(s1), pages 683-719, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Farid Shirazi & Nick Hajli, 2021. "IT-Enabled Sustainable Innovation and the Global Digital Divides," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-24, August.
    2. Alfonsina Iona & Andrea Calef & Ifigenia Georgiou, 2023. "Credit Market Freedom and Corporate Decisions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-13, March.
    3. Jia, Qiaoyu & Zhou, Jia'nan, 2021. "The dark side of stock market liberalization: Perspectives from corporate R&D activities in China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    4. Rosolino A. Candela & Vincent Geloso, 2021. "Economic freedom, pandemics, and robust political economy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(4), pages 1250-1266, April.
    5. Deerfield, Amanda & Elert, Niklas, 2022. "Entrepreneurship and Regulatory Voids: The Case of Ridesharing," Working Paper Series 1426, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    6. Cai, Kelly & Zhu, Hui, 2020. "Does going public in the U.S. facilitate corporate innovation of foreign firms?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. Malanski, Leonardo Köppe & Póvoa, Angela Cristiane Santos, 2021. "Economic growth and corruption in emerging markets: Does economic freedom matter?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 58-70.
    8. Jeffrey Kouton & Rafiou R. Bétila & Moïse Lawin, 2021. "The Impact of ICT Development on Health Outcomes in Africa: Does Economic Freedom Matter?," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(4), pages 1830-1869, December.
    9. Lepetit, Laetitia & Tran, Phan Huy Hieu & Tran, Thu Ha, 2023. "Executive and non-executive employee ownership and bank risk: Evidence from European banks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 291-319.
    10. Migbaru A. Workneh, 2020. "Gender Inequality, Governance, and Poverty in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(2), pages 150-174, June.
    11. Cheng, Lei & Cheng, Hong & Zhuang, Ziyin, 2019. "Political connections, corporate innovation and entrepreneurship: Evidence from the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES)," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 286-305.
    12. Daniel L. Bennett & Boris Nikolaev, 2021. "Individualism, pro-market institutions, and national innovation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 2085-2106, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Acharya, Viral & Xu, Zhaoxia, 2017. "Financial dependence and innovation: The case of public versus private firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 223-243.
    2. Moshirian, Fariborz & Tian, Xuan & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Wenrui, 2021. "Stock market liberalization and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 985-1014.
    3. Cai, Kelly & Zhu, Hui, 2020. "Does going public in the U.S. facilitate corporate innovation of foreign firms?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    4. Daniel Bradley & Incheol Kim & Xuan Tian, 2017. "Do Unions Affect Innovation?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2251-2271, July.
    5. Mukherjee, Abhiroop & Singh, Manpreet & Žaldokas, Alminas, 2017. "Do corporate taxes hinder innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 195-221.
    6. Yang, Huan, 2021. "Institutional dual holdings and risk-shifting: Evidence from corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Boubakri, Narjess & Chkir, Imed & Saadi, Samir & Zhu, Hui, 2021. "Does national culture affect corporate innovation? International evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    8. Yongqiang Chu & Xuan Tian & Wenyu Wang, 2019. "Corporate Innovation Along the Supply Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2445-2466, June.
    9. Huang, Yi-Hou & Liang, Woan-lih & Truong, Quang-Thai & Wang, Yanzhi, 2022. "No new tricks for old dogs? Old directors and innovation performance," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    10. Ching-Hung Chang & Qingqing Wu, 2021. "Board Networks and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3618-3654, June.
    11. Cornaggia, Jess & Mao, Yifei & Tian, Xuan & Wolfe, Brian, 2015. "Does banking competition affect innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 189-209.
    12. (Jennifer) Wu, Szu-Yin & Chung, Kee H., 2019. "Corporate innovation, likelihood to be acquired, and takeover premiums," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    13. Seong K. Byun & Jong-Min & Han Xia, 2021. "Incremental vs. Breakthrough Innovation: The Role of Technology Spillovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1779-1802, March.
    14. Lily Nguyen & Le Vu & Xiangkang Yin, 2021. "Share repurchases and firm innovation," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1665-1695, April.
    15. Adhikari, Binay Kumar & Agrawal, Anup, 2016. "Religion, gambling attitudes and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 229-248.
    16. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Tian, Xuan & Xu, Yan, 2014. "Financial development and innovation: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 116-135.
    17. Hsu, Yuan-Teng & Huang, Chia-Wei & Koedijk, Kees G., 2023. "Unintended consequences of compensation peer groups on corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    18. Chkir, Imed & El Haj Hassan, Boushra & Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir, 2021. "Does corporate social responsibility influence corporate innovation? International evidence," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    19. Glaeser, Stephen, 2018. "The effects of proprietary information on corporate disclosure and transparency: Evidence from trade secrets," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 163-193.
    20. Chen Lin & Sibo Liu & Gustavo Manso, 2021. "Shareholder Litigation and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3346-3367, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation; Economic freedom; Patents; Citations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:63:y:2017:i:c:p:50-65. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620167 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.