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Table 14 Technological improvement rates and breakthrough innovations: breakthrough measures across industries (part II)

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

Dependent variables

IMP75

IMP90

IMP99

Model

(1)

(2)

(3)

Variables

Digital:Chemical

11.599*** (2.157)

9.024*** (1.262)

1.611*** (0.256)

Digital:Computer/ICT

7.100***  (0.882)

1.736*** (0.314)

0.027 (0.039)

Digital:Electrical

28.908*** (2.004)

13.594*** (0.686)

0.442*** (0.115)

Digital:Machinery

4.916***  (1.199)

5.103***  (0.774)

0.804*** (0.071)

Digital:Medical

27.020*** (2.060)

13.546*** (0.969)

− 0.104    (0.240)

Digital:Pharma

4.612*** (1.135)

− 1.333*    (0.791)

− 1.661*** (0.186)

Non-digital: k:Chemical

− 0.055    (0.045)

− 0.005 (0.019)

0.003 (0.007)

Digital:Chemical

− 0.034** (0.014)

− 0.002 (0.025)

0.014 (0.010)

Non-digital: k:Computer/ICT

0.274*** (0.038)

0.088*** (0.016)

0.005*** (0.001)

Digital:Computer/ICT

0.135*** (0.010)

0.068*** (0.008)

0.008*** (0.001)

Non-digital: k:Electrical

1.627*** (0.089)

0.795*** (0.046)

0.079*** (0.006)

Digital:Electrical

0.349*** (0.019)

0.262*** (0.023)

0.075*** (0.010)

Non-digital: k:Machinery

0.551*** (0.083)

0.406*** (0.059)

0.056*** (0.007)

Digital:Machinery

0.158*** (0.031)

0.082*** (0.024)

0.016*** (0.005)

Non-digital: k:Medical

0.419*** (0.038)

0.159*** (0.034)

0.005 (0.005)

Digital:Medical

0.277*** (0.027)

0.299*** (0.049)

0.130*** (0.030)

Non-digital: k:Pharma

− 0.122    (0.089)

− 0.151** (0.071)

− 0.016    (0.014)

Digital:Pharma

0.182*** (0.046)

0.247*** (0.041)

0.133*** (0.027)

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

3,243,795

3,243,795

3,243,795

  1. All estimations include USPTO patents of the filing years 1990–2015 if at least one inventor has been from Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, the UK, or the USA. In order to proxy breakthrough innovations, the three specifications (1)–(3) consider an importance measure based on patent text similarity as proposed by Kelly et al. (2021). For details, see the accompanying text. In particular, the specification of column (1) indicates a breakthrough innovation if the patent’s importance measure is among the top 25%, the specification of column (2) if it is among the top 10%, and the one of column (3) if it is among the top one percent. In order to show associations in percentage points, we have multiplied the IMP-dummies 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: \(p^*<0.1\); \(p^{**}<0.05\); \(p^{***}<0.01\)