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Table 10 Technological improvement rates and breakthrough innovations: time period estimates across industries

From: Digital technologies, technological improvement rates, and innovations “Made in Switzerland”

Dependent variables

FWD90

Model

(1990-1999)

(2000–2009)

(2010–2015)

Variables

Digital: Chemical

11.285*** (1.290)

6.997*** (0.674)

3.064*** (0.697)

Digital: Computer/ICT

2.008*** (0.314)

0.449 (0.281)

0.883*** (0.398)

Digital: Electrical

5.783*** (0.515)

6.959*** (0.577)

8.658*** (1.546)

Digital: Machinery

1.162***  (0.525)

0.938*** (0.194)

0.137 (0.701)

Digital: Medical

9.532*** (1.357)

5.714*** (0.717)

3.327*** (1.363)

Digital: Pharma

1.977*** (0.691)

0.062 (0.673)

1.938 (1.329)

Non-digital: k:Chemical

0.221*** (0.024)

0.124*** (0.028)

0.250*** (0.025)

Digital: k:Chemical

− 0.004 (0.038)

− 0.005   (0.015)

0.012    (0.033)

Non-digital: k:Computer/ICT

0.184*** (0.019)

− 0.001    (0.020)

0.001    (0.043)

Digital: k:Computer/ICT

0.071*** (0.003)

0.008    (0.008)

0.019*** (0.004)

Non-digital: k:Electrical

0.384*** (0.062)

0.415*** (0.032)

0.445*** (0.035)

Digital: k:Electrical

0.178*** (0.025)

0.109*** (0.027)

0.079***   (0.043)

Non-digital: k:Machinery

0.236*** (0.021)

0.131*** (0.012)

0.069*** (0.007)

Digital: k:Machinery

0.091*** (0.022)

0.017    (0.012)

0.015    (0.019)

Non-digital: k:Medical

0.393*** (0.032)

0.087***   (0.046)

0.024    (0.038)

Digital: k:Medical

0.067 (0.049)

0.013    (0.030)

0.045***   (0.027)

Non-digital: k:Pharma

0.195*** (0.038)

− 0.050    (0.062)

0.020    (0.098)

Digital: k:Pharma

0.158*** (0.059)

0.027    (0.052)

-0.008   (0.026)

Control variables

inv

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

num_ctry

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

Claims

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

bwd_cits

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

Fixed effects

Industry

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

Year

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

Year-Industry

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

\(\checkmark\)

Observations

1,207,095

1,651,118

385,589

  1. All estimations include USPTO patents from Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA of the filing years 1990–2015. If a patent has inventors from more than one of those countries, it will only be included once. The first model specification considers only USPTO patents filed between 1990 and 1999, the second patents filed between 2000 and 2009, and the third patents filed between 2010 and 2015. In order to show associations in percentage points, we have multiplied the FWD90-dummy by 100. The industry fixed effects are at the level of the six industries included in the interaction terms. The standard errors in parentheses are also clustered at this industry level. Significance levels for the coefficients are indicated as: \(p^*<0.1\); \(p^{**}<0.05\); \(p^{***}<0.01\)