| Globalization has reorganized productive activity in our planet. While industrialized countries where initially the center of manufacturing activity, they have lost their title to emerging economies who offer cheaper production costs. Given the seemingly endless supply of cheap labor available at a global level, this gradual shift of production operations does not appear to have an end in sight. In such a bleak economic picture, technological innovation is seen as the panacea for solving the problem of productivity growth, and thus the issue of decreasing standards of living in advanced economies. A few words of caution need to be said against such wishful thinking.;All technological innovations do not have the same economic impact and recent technological advances do not appears to have the same impact as major innovations of the 19th century. From this perspective, the failure to control the process of producing and commercializing innovations that have broad economic impact appears to be an obstacle for those who preach innovation as a solution to the economic stagnation problem.;From a business cycles perspective, economic growth is rooted in the production of basic innovations. These breakthroughs serve as the basis for subsequent inventions in a multitude of technological disciplines. Yet, despite their immense importance from a social point of view, little is known about the conditions that lead to their creation and the private benefits that they engender to innovators. Regarding the question about the creation of basic innovations, the importance of technological exploration versus exploitation is a major source of debate. When aiming for innovation impact, should firms focus their search effort to a focused set of disciplines or should they combine technologies from distant ones? Concerning the question about private returns to basic innovations, the role of public institutions as producers of basic innovations is also a controversial subject. The main purpose of this thesis is to answer these questions by identifying 1) the conditions under which distant technology recombination leads to the spread of the resulting invention across disciplines, and 2) how the private and public sectors value basic innovations.;To answer these questions, econometric analyses of patenting activity in the Canadian nanotechnology industry are performed. Regarding the first question, the results show that distant recombination generally leads to basic innovations. However, a set of moderators have a negative impact on distant recombination. While private organizations are less likely to produce basic innovations, their effort to combine distant technologies is more likely to produce basic innovations. Also, strong linkage with basic science has a negative effect on distant recombination.;Concerning the second research question, results show that basic innovations are generally associated with higher perceived private returns under conditions of industry dynamism and strong appropriability regimes. However, regarding private and public sectors, perceptions depend on the present spread of a technology and its future perceived spread. Firms perceives greater returns in inventions that have already spread across disciplines, while those that will subsequently spread in the future are perceived as less valuable. |
