Marco Guerzoni

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, DEMS, Faculty Member

Université de Strasbourg, BETA - Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, Associate fellow

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I research a vast broad of issues on economics and management of innovation and technology. I fancy advanced statistical techniques for large dataset and big data. P-value is not as sexy as machine learning. I also did some work in economics of culture and history of economic thought.

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Papers by Marco Guerzoni

Price or performance? A probabilistic choice analysis of the intention to buy electric vehicles in European countries

Energy Policy , 2018

Traditional choice models perform poorly in understanding the determinants of the adoption of new... more Traditional choice models perform poorly in understanding the determinants of the adoption of new products. First, data on pioneers and early adopters are biased towards specific performance characteristics of the product and the socio-demographic characteristics of the consumers. Second, surveys on the intention to buy underperform in detecting movements of those who do not intend to buy, who are the majority in the case of new products. Probabilistic choice models try to overcome this issue. By using survey data on electric vehicles, we theoretically contribute to this stream of literature and empirically estimate the impact of specific performance improvements and price reduction on the probability of consumers switching from non-intention to buy to intention to buy. Results show that price reduction is the most important triggering factor for the diffusion of electric vehicles, as it determines more than other factors the transition of consumers from the non-intention to the intention to buy an electric vehicle. The improvement in the driving range constitutes the second most important factor for low initial values of the stated intention to buy, while the possibility of recharging at home matters significantly more for consumers with high initial values of the stated intention to buy.

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The survival of start-ups in time of crisis. Combining machine learning with econometrics to measure innovation

Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 2020

This paper shows how data science can contribute to improving empirical research in economics by ... more This paper shows how data science can contribute to improving empirical research in economics by leveraging on large datasets and extracting information otherwise unsuitable for a traditional econometric approach. As a test-bed for our framework, machine learning algorithms allow us to create a new holistic measure of innovation following a 2012 Italian Law aimed at boosting new high-tech firms. We adopt this measure to analyse the impact of innovativeness on a large population of Italian firms which entered the market at the beginning of the 2008 global crisis. The methodological contribution is organised in different steps. First, we train seven supervised learning algorithms to recognise innovative firms on 2013 firmographics data and select a combination of those models with the best prediction power. Second, we apply the latter on the 2008 dataset and predict which firms would have been labelled as innovative according to the definition of the 2012 law. Finally, we adopt this new indicator as the regressor in a survival model to explain firms' ability to remain in the market after 2008. The results suggest that innovative firms are more likely to survive than the rest of the sample, but the survival premium is likely to depend on location. JEL CODES: O30, D22, C52, C55.

format_quoteInnovative firms show a survival premium mediated by sector, disappearing when controlled for location, challenging earlier literature consensus on innovation's survival impact.format_quote

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What Topic Modeling Could Reveal about the Evolution of Economics

Journal of Economics Methdology, 2018

The paper presents the topic modeling technique known as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a for... more The paper presents the topic modeling technique known as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a form of text-mining aiming at discovering the hidden (latent) thematic structure in large archives of documents. By applying LDA to the full text of the economics articles stored in the JSTOR database, we show how to construct a map of the discipline over time, and illustrate the potentialities of the technique for the study of the shifting structure of economics in a time of (possible) fragmentation

format_quoteThis paper proposes a novel quantitative approach using LDA for mapping the historical development of economics, addressing limitations of existing methods.format_quote

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Big data: Hell or heaven? Digital platforms and market power in the data-driven economy

Competition and Change, 2019

The technology underlying the digital transformation triggered a process of concentration in seve... more The technology underlying the digital transformation triggered a process of concentration in several digital markets and few global players rose to dominate key industries by leveraging on network externalities and economies of scale.
We evaluate the risk of abuse of dominant position by looking at three economic aspects stressed in the economic theory: the contestability of digital markets, the presence of price discrimination, and potential for technological improvement. All in all, we conclude that the nature of big data on the one side has been the trigger of market concentration, but, on the other side, it limits the possibility of its abuse. This claim is not an a-priori apologia of large incumbents in digital markets, which should anyway kept under surveillance by antritrust authorities as any other industry, but rather an attempt to argue that market concentration is a matter a fact and not an necessarily evil one. Nonetheless, the concentration of power in few large global players should rise other concerns linked with the supranational nature of these firms, which can easily cherry-picking locations to exploit tax competition among countries or more favorable legislation on the privacy and the fair use of data.

format_quoteThe top five global tech firms are valued at $3.3 trillion, illustrating extreme market concentration and monopolistic competition.format_quote

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Digital Disruption and the Transformation of Italian Manufacturing Piemonte Region and Northern Italy in the Global Competition

Aspen Institute Italia, 2018

The main aim of this report is to provide detailed evidence on the long-term resilience of Italia... more The main aim of this report is to provide detailed evidence on the long-term resilience of Italian manufacturing, focusing, in particular, on the regions in the North-West (primary locus of Italy’s historical industrialization) and North-East (primary locus of industrialization
in the 1980s and 1990s) of Italy. We study the case of Piemonte and also analyse the main trends in Lombardia, Emilia Romagna and Triveneto. Overall, this geographical macro area accounts for about 27 million people, equivalent to the population in BENELUX. The
journey from Milano by train takes 45 minutes to reach Torino, 60 minutes to reach Bologna and 200 minutes to reach Venezia. Milano and Torino can be considered an urban agglomeration (e.g., the Metropolitan Statistical Area of greater Boston is about 110 km in
diameter involves a mean work commute travel time of 45 minutes).
We introduce and discuss a set of indicators aimed at capturing industrial resilience in the most recent years. We examine the evolution of our main indicators from the mid-1990s, the period when Italian productivity began to lag behind that of Germany, the other main
European exporter.

format_quoteItalian industrial robotics market grew significantly, with CAGR of 20% from 2010 to 2015; automotive sector leads with 38% installed base in 2015.format_quote

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Industrial Pattern and Robot Adoption in European Regions

Department of Management, Università Ca'Foscari Venezia Working Paper , 2020

Recent literature on the diffusion of robots mostly ignores the regional dimension. The contribut... more Recent literature on the diffusion of robots mostly ignores the regional dimension. The contribution of this paper at the debate on Industry 4.0 is twofold. First, IFR (2017) data on acquisitions of industrial robots in the five largest European economies are rescaled at regional levels to draw a first picture of winners and losers in the European race for advanced
manufacturing. Second, using an unsupervised machine learning approach to classify regions based on their composition of industries. The paper provides novel evidence of the relationship between industry mix and the regional capability of adopting robots in the industrial processes.

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MAPPING THE EVOLUTION OF THE ROBOTICS INDUSTRY: A CROSS COUNTRY COMPARISON

Innovation policy white paper series., 2018

Industry 4.0 may be regarded as an emerging approach to the adoption of next-generation robotics ... more Industry 4.0 may be regarded as an emerging approach to the adoption of next-generation robotics for industrial applications. Our study sheds light on the current state of robotics, with a particular focus on robots for industrial applications. The research combines publicly-available information from company press releases, news articles, peer-reviewed journals and trade and industry reports.
The paper is organized in four sections. Section 1 discusses some definitions of robotics and robotics subclasses, and various robotics classifications. Sections 2 and 3 provide a snapshot of demand and supply of robotics, and offers some insights into select regional markets and global technological trends. Section 4 describes the challenges and opportunities surrounding robotics and Industry 4.0, and the future impact of these technologies

format_quoteFrom 2011 to 2016, the robotics sales CAGR was approximately 12%, with 103,300 units in 2016, largely driven by the automotive sector.format_quote

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by Marco Guerzoni, Magda Fontana, and Elena Beretta

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2018

The paper provides a theoretical model of technology adoption based on the idea that the diffusio... more The paper provides a theoretical model of technology adoption based on the idea that the diffusion of information about a technology depends both on the social structure of the adopters and their degree of assortativity. We propose a framework that-while retaining the core assumptions of epidemic diffusion models-allows for explicit modelling of the social structure via social network and of agents cultural heterogeneity via agent-based simulation. Decision-making takes place in institutional contexts where individual features trigger differentiated imitative responses and societal organization acts as medium on which information flows. The model simulates the diffusion of fertilizers in five Ethiopian villages (Peasant Associations),which differ in both political and relational structures and farmers belong to numerous ethnic and religious groups. Starting from survey data we run a compositional understanding simulation with the aim of reproducing observed diffusion curves on the basis of unobserved individual interactions. By minimizing the divergence from model output and observed diffusion, the exercise of categorical calibration and time series fit identify a set of plausible parameters for each village. Results highlight the importance of cultural dissimilarities to understand the diffusion processes.

format_quoteTechnology adoption is influenced more by social and cultural factors than by economic determinants in specific contexts.format_quote

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Innovative public procurement and R&D Subsidies: hidden treatment and new empirical evidence on the technology policy mix in a quasi-experimental setting

Innovative Procurement and R&D Subsidies: Confounding Effect and New Empirical Evidence on Technological Policies in a Quasi-Experimental Setting

This paper provides new empirical evidence about the impact of technological policies upon firms'... more This paper provides new empirical evidence about the impact of technological policies upon firms' innovative behavior. We take into consideration the role of R&D subsidies and innovative public procurement. While the former policy tool has been both extensively discussed in the literature and empirically investigated, the latter is a growing trend, which still lacks robust empirical evidence. In this paper, we replicate existing results on R&D subsidies, we surmise fresh empirical evidence on the outcome of innovative public procurement, and we address the issue of a possible interaction among the two tools. When controlling for this interaction of public procurement, R&D subsidies cease to be as effective as reported in previous studies. Innovative public procurement seems to be more effective than R&D subsidies. Evidence suggests that the two policies provide the highest impact when they interact and that they have to be simultaneously considered. Failure in doing so might lead to biased results.

format_quotePolicy_Both treatment shows a 20 percentage point increase in R&D expenditure among firms receiving R&D subsidies and innovative procurement simultaneously, highlighting significant synergy.format_quote

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A new industry creation and originality: Insight from the funding sources of university patents

Research Policy, 2014

Scientific breakthroughs coming from universities can contribute to the emergence of new industri... more Scientific breakthroughs coming from universities can contribute to the emergence of new industries, such as in the case of biotechnology. Obviously, not all research conducted in universities leads to a radical change from existing technological trajectories. Patents and patent dynamics have long been recognized as critical in understanding the emergence of new technologies and industries. Specifically, patent citations provide insight into the originality of a discovery that has received patent protection. Yet while a large body of literature addresses the impact of patent originality on various firm performance measures, we address the question of what conditions drive patent originality in the process of knowledge creation within the university. Using data on patented cancer research, we examine how research context -as reflected by the funding source for each scientistis associated with patent originality. We find that when university scientists are partly funded by their own university, they have a higher propensity to generate more original patents. By contrast, university scientists funded either by industry or other non-university organizations have a lower propensity to generate more original patents. The significance of our findings in the cancer research setting call for further research on this question in other research fields.

format_quoteUniversity funding is positively correlated with greater patent originality, indicating differences in funding sources significantly affect innovation outputs.format_quote

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University Knowledge, Originality of Patents and the Creation of New Industries

by Marco Guerzoni and Taylor Aldridge

Scientific breakthroughs emanating from universities can be a trigger for the emergence of new in... more Scientific breakthroughs emanating from universities can be a trigger for the emergence of new industries such as in the paradigmatic case of biotechnology. Obviously, not all research conducted in the universities leads to radical departure from the existing technological trajectories. When a patent protection is granted to a discovery, it is possible to construct a proxy for the originality of the discovery based on patent citations. Patent originality has been long recognized in fostering the emergence of new technologies and industries. However, while a large body of literature exists measuring the impact of patent originality on a broad range of measures of firm performance, this paper aims at investigating the conditions driving patent originality. In particular, in providing the first empirical examination of the determinants of patent originality, this paper finds that the research context, as reflected by the funding source for the scientist, influences the extent to which intellectual property protected by a patent is original.

format_quoteUniversity funding significantly enhances patent originality, explaining 30% of its variance—contradicting assumptions about governmental funding's efficacy.format_quote

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Variety generation and price evolution in the ski manufacturing industry

dime-eu.org

Page 1. Variety generation and price evolution in the ski manufacturing industry Nicoletta Corroc... more

Innovation and market dynamics: A two-mode network approach to user-producer relation

The aim of this paper is to explain the why of a certain innovative activity instead of another a... more

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The pursuit of variety: creation of new products and strategic differentiation

KITeS Working Papers, 2009

The generation of new varieties is crucial for economic growth. The capitalistic mode of producti... more

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The Emerging Crowdfunding Market in Italy: Are “the Crowd” Friends of Mine?

by Ivana Pais, Marco Guerzoni, and Angelo Miglietta

Emerging literature on crowdfunding, until now, is missing detailed empirical analyses on profile... more Emerging literature on crowdfunding, until now, is missing detailed empirical analyses on profiles of “crowdfunders”. Our paper aims to address this shortage, analyzing geographical and socio-economic characteristics of crowdfunders, looking at how crowdfunding influences the nature of geography and social contacts in new ventures. Our analysis concentrates on Italy, a country suffering for a huge economic crisis but that, at the same time, is showing a strong dynamism in crowdfunding. We collect data on donors of about 350 projects, estimating with a micro-econometric model not only which donors’ characteristics increase the likelihood of an investment, but also the role played by social media in the crowdfunding process. Our results give some remarkable indications about crowdfunding in different countries and cultural contexts.

Incentives and uncertainty: an empirical analysis of the impact of demand on innovation

We study the impact of demand on innovation. By focusing on a sample of small- and medium-sized e... more We study the impact of demand on innovation. By focusing on a sample of small- and medium-sized enterprises in several industries and European countries, we analyse how demand stimulates innovation by providing economic incentives and reducing uncertainty. Considering the size of the market as a proxy for the presence of demand, we find support for the idea that the presence of incentives stimulates innovation. This is particularly true for process innovation. In considering interaction with customers as a way to reduce uncertainty, we find that firms that see customers as the most important sources of information for both innovation ideas and completion, tend to introduce product innovations. Firm size, R&D expenditure and sectoral effects also matter.

Product variety and price strategy in the ski manufacturing industry

The present paper aims at examining the role of variety in the ski manufacturing industry and its... more The present paper aims at examining the role of variety in the ski manufacturing industry and its relevance in firms’ price setting strategies. In particular, it intends to investigate and to empirically test three hypotheses concerning the relations between: product quality and prices; variety in technical characteristics and prices; variety in service characteristics and prices. Our empirical investigation finds that prices are positively affected by product quality and positively affected by variety in service characteristics. This means that a high degree of product variety allows firms to charge a premium price on consumers, who are able to find the product that best meets their needs and are therefore willing to pay a higher price. By contrast, variety in technical characteristics negatively impacts prices. In a context where a dominant design has emerged and new varieties are not radically different from each other, the gains in economies of scale and scope outweigh the costs of the increased flexibility in the equipment required to produce variety.

Innovation Driving Industrial Dynamics. Between Incentives and Knowledge

The aim of the paper is to critically review contributions on the role of innovation upon industr... more The aim of the paper is to critically review contributions on the role of innovation upon industrial dynamics and the evolution of sectors. Two theoretical and interpretative divides stream along the literature; on the one hand, there is the well known divide "technology push vs. demand pull". The technology push literature assumes that, being the set of possible human needs limitless, users cannot provide information for firms, which ultimately make their decision based upon technological opportunities and bottlenecks. Conversely, demand pull theories suggest that there is tendency of new technology to lag behind the revelation of human needs. On the other hand, both technology push and demand pull contributions are not monolithic, neither homogenous since a second divide intersects both streams of literature. Indeed there exists a flow of literature both coherent with mainstream economics and focused on the monetary incentives of firms to innovate. On the technology side, this is translated into the analysis of the impact of markets and institutions upon the rewards of innovation. On the demand side, this framework results in the analysis of the market size as the main pull mechanism. A second approach departs from mainstream economics, sacrifices the analytical tractability of the issues, and highlights the role of the knowledge embedded in the innovation processes. The focus is thus on the learning process within and between firms as necessary conditions to innovation. The demand side here is conceived as a flow of information from users and consumers to producers. The organization of the paper will mimic the historical structure of the literature. Specifically, it shows how these approaches emerged, the critiques they are confronted with and, eventually, their refinement. Finally, the paper discusses the recent attempts to overcome both divides in order to have an increasingly coherent theory of innovation and evolution of industries.

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The impact of market size and users’ sophistication on innovation: the patterns of demand

The aim of this paper is an investigation on the role of demand upon innovation. Despite the deca... more The aim of this paper is an investigation on the role of demand upon innovation. Despite the decades-long debate on demand and innovation, theory still lacks an analytical formulation. This paper proposes a model where demand is conceived as a peculiar blend of two conditions, market size, and users’ sophistication. These conditions drive firms’ incentives to innovate. As the main outcome, the paper explores the underlying mechanisms of demand-pull theories and proposes a theoretical taxonomy of industries.

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