https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE <p>Estudios de Economía is published, since 1973, two times a year by the Department of Economics at the University of Chile. Its purpose is to publish empirical as well as theoretical papers in every field of Economics. All papers must go through refereeing process by two anonymous referees. As part of our editorial policy, an answer regarding the status of a paper will not exceed two months from its reception. If that were not the case, the authors are free to send their paper for consideration for publication elsewhere.</p> Departamento de Economía - Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad de Chile. en-US Estudios de Economía 0304-2758 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/75136 In this paper, we discuss several aspects related to innovation and entrepreneurship in Latin America (LATAM). First, we document how LATAM lags behing high-income economies using various innovation indicators and how heterogeneity is a relevant issue for the region. Then, we review the main research topics related to innovation and entrepreneurship covered by economic academic research focused on the region. Within this context, we summarize the main results and contribution of the selected papers for this special issue. Roberto Álvarez Matteo Grazzi Diana Suárez Sebastian Vergara Copyright (c) 2024 Estudios de Economía 2024-08-01 2024-08-01 51 1 5 17 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/75149 ANR Patentes is an Argentinean program that gives grants for patents applications to innovative firms, entrepreneurs and researchers. Throughout the period 2007-2017, 83 projects (out of 195) were funded. Based on secondary sources and a survey conducted to beneficiaries, this study reconstructs the progress made by the patent applicants. The results show, on the one hand, that a high percentage of the patents have been granted, and, on the other hand, a group of projects are facing difficulties to reach the market. Thus, the study suggests the necessity to complement ANR Patentes with other instruments oriented to foster entrepreneurship and productive development. Dario Milesi Carlos Aggio Vladimiro Verre Copyright (c) 2024 Estudios de Economía 2024-08-01 2024-08-01 51 1 19 43 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/75150 In the past decades, intangibles assets have become an important source of productivity and economic growth in developed countries. Despite the transforming properties of intangibles across economies and the large and dynamic literature on the impact of intangible investments on productivity growth in frontier countries, there is not much evidence for the Latin America context. This paper contributes to the empirical literature on intangible investments along various dimensions. First, we make use of a large firm-level longitudinal data set from Peru, a Latin America middle income country, which contains separated information on intangible assets, which allow us to measure the impact of them on both wages and productivity at the firm level. Second, the analysis at the firm level and the panel structure of the data allows us to control for the endogeneity of variable inputs applying different control function approaches. In addition, the production function estimates provide us with a measure of unobservables, which we include in the wage equation to retrieve consistent estimates for the impact of intangible assets on wages. Third, our data allow us to explore how the impact of intangibles on wages and productivity is affected by the differences in the composition of the bundle of intangibles, changes in the product mix at the firm level and for the presence of imperfect competition in the labor market. We find that an increase in the share of intan-gible assets by one standard deviation is associated with 6.8% to 7.2% higher total factor productivity, depending on the model´s specification. We also find that the capital productivity premium of intangible assets over tangible ones is substantial with estimates suggesting that intangibles are up to 2 times more productive than tangible assets. We also find that this capital productivity premium is not entirely offset by an increase in wages. Finally, we conclude that the main channels for appropriability are the specificity of the ideas generated by intangible investments at the firm level and the wage compression due to imperfect competition in the labor market. Rafael Castillo Gustavo Crespi Copyright (c) 2024 Estudios de Economía 2024-08-01 2024-08-01 51 1 45 84 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/75137 Using the Chilean Innovation Survey for 2019-2020, this work studies the effects of different knowledge sources on a range of innovation outputs. Findings reveal distinct impacts of sourcing information from competitors, customers, and government agencies on product, process, marketing, organizational, and social innovation outputs. Information from customers has a positive effect on overall innovation. Social innovation is positively influenced by information sourced from government agencies. These findings contribute to the understanding of how different knowledge sources shape innovation outputs on developing countries. They provide valuable insights for firms, policymakers, and researchers seeking to enhance innovation capabilities and inform evidence-based policies. Rodolfo Lauterbach Copyright (c) 2024 Estudios de Economía 2024-08-01 2024-08-01 51 1 85 115 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/75138 This paper evaluates the impacts of quality management tools on the labor productivity of companies in Peru for the period 2014-2019 based on causal Machine Learning (ML) techniques (MLC), which reduce or eliminate three potential problems: the endogeneity of the variables of interest, the existence of confusing variables (confounding) and overfitting due to the introduction of many control variables. Using the National Survey of Companies (INEI-ENE 2023), the evaluation indicates that quality control tools affect the productivity of formal companies, particularly large and medium-sized companies. Mario Tello Daniel Tello Copyright (c) 2024 Estudios de Economía 2024-08-01 2024-08-01 51 1 117 158 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/75139 The purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between different innovation profiles, capabilities, and innovation results of manufacturing firms from Argentina. The premise that guides our research is that most of firms not performing formal R&D -92%- are a highly heterogeneous group in terms of innovative behaviour, capabilities and innovative performance. Thus, we propose to study firms’ innovation profile as a gradient that accounts for formal R&D, informal R&D, non- R&D performing firms and firms without innovation efforts. Then, the relationship between these profiles and five dimensions of firms’ capabilities -productive, organizational, connectivity, and accumulated and potential absorptive - is explored. Accordingly, the study of how these profiles correlate with firms’ innovation results -products and/or processes innovations, new marketing and/or organizational changes, patents and ratio of new product sales to total sales- is also carried out. The empirical evidence is based on Argentinean manufacturing firms with data from the second wave of the National Innovation Survey composed by around 4000 observations for the period of 2014-16. Results suggest that more complex R&D profiles require higher levels of capabilities. Moreover, there seems to be a threshold of capabilities in moving from the non-R&D to the informal R&D profile. Likewise, while informal R&D is a critical threshold to increase the probability of obtaining product, process, organization and marketing innovations, formal R&D is key to get patents and to increase the share of new products on total sales. Florencia Barletta Diana Suarez Gabriel Yoguel Florencia Fiorentin Copyright (c) 2024 Estudios de Economía 2024-08-01 2024-08-01 51 1 161 191