2018/06 LEM Working Paper Series

Weaker jobs, weaker innovation. Exploring the temporary employment-product innovation nexus

Armanda Cetrulo, Valeria Cirillo and Dario Guarascio
  Keywords
 
product innovation, labor market flexibility, temporary employment


  JEL Classifications
 
J40, J63, O31


  Abstract
 
This work explores the relationship between temporary employment and product innovation focusing on five major European economies (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands) observed between 1998 and 2012. Building on the conceptual framework proposed by Kleinknecht et al. (2014), the analysis distinguishes sectors according to their technological characteristics and regimes finding that industries using temporary employment tend to have a weaker product innovation propensity. The negative correlation between temporary employment and innovation is stronger in medium and hightech sectors, identified using both the "Cumulativeness" proxy stemming from Peneder’s classification (Peneder, 2010) as well as distinguishing between different Schumpeterian regimes - Schumpeter Mark I vs II - of knowledge accumulation.
  Downloads
 
download pdf


Back