This article is dedicated to a consideration of the tertiarization of innovation networks. While the concept of traditional innovation network has been the object of an extensive literature, new

The goal of this paper is to (re)assess the relationship between knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) and the economic growth. Taking into account various conflicting relationships between KIBS and growth, we build a multi agent-based system involving industrial firms, consumer-services firms, consumers, KIBS firms and a banking system. Our main result is that KIBS can be regarded as an engine for the economic growth and that they operate as a substitute for the material capital accumulation. Nevertheless, material capital accumulation always appears as a significant factor of economic growth.

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To cite this version:Benoît Desmarchelier, Faridah Djellal, Faïz Gallouj. Environmental policies and eco-innovations by service firms: an agent-based model. AbstractContrary to a widely held prejudice, service activities are polluting because they make use of physical tools and require travel, both of which give rise to externalities. In order to deal with these externalities, service firms can implement eco-innovations. The aim of this article is to evaluate the sensitivity of this eco-innovation to environmental policies by comparing the effectiveness of two such policies: the environmental tax and consumer information. To this end, we construct an agent-based model of innovation that draws on evolutionary biology and theories of innovation in services (Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997 [27]). A test of 123 different scenarios confirms that service firms are sensitive to environmental policies. The results suggest that the eco-tax is more effective, since it produces a lower and more stable level of pollution than a consumer information policy. The information policy appears to give rise to a perverse effect that causes market niches for the most environmentally friendly services to disappear.

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