Competences, product innovation, growth and employment : An agent-based approach.

Summary The concept of skills and their heterogeneity should be considered important in economic theory and empirics because skills are an opportunity for growth but also a problem for growth. We study the process of skill construction in two agent-based models, but each focuses on different features of this process. In the first model, competencies grow with learning and transfer of competencies in an alliance. We construct a coopetition model where firms partner in R&D for quality innovation but remain competitors in a single-sector market. The partners do not share all their competences and specialize in part. This allows the persistence of alliances and a long-term network. The second model is a consistent stock-flow model, with the main types of agents. It introduces sector innovation, which plays a crucial role for the possibility of long-term growth by overcoming demand saturation. Firms' demand for complex skills increases with the quality of existing products and the characteristics of new products. The supply of skills is modeled at the individual level. We show the blocking effect of the skill constraint, especially in complex skills, on growth and employment, with possible long-run Keynesian depressions.