As the increase of competition levels, the ability of generating a continuous stream of innovation occupies an exceptionally important role in the development and manufacturing of companies, especially in bio-pharmaceutical industry in United States. This paper presents an empirical perspective on the nature of innovation of the U.S. bio-pharmaceutical companies. Several issues discussed here are central to a study of R&D expenditure's determinates of top listed bio-pharmaceutical companies sampling from U.S. market. It begins with the background information of innovation in overall bio-pharmaceutical sector, and then moves on to detail of R&D activities in bio-pharmaceutical industry. Next it discusses the estimated factors which influence R&D expenditures, following by previous literatures review. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and to test financial and non-financial factors determining R&D expenditures for individual top technique bio-pharmaceutical listed firms through literature review using data for the 2001 to 2010 periods by both single variable analysis and multiple variable analyses empirically. Moreover, the further step in this study is to investigate the real relations between those factor and R&D expenditures individually and synthetically. In this way, this work helps us have a more clear understanding on the relationship between firm performance and firm R&D expenditures. More specifically, the study provides evidence on three essential issues. To answer there three questions, the paper conducts both single variables analysis and multiple variable analysis. For single variable analyses, first step is to draw scatter plots based on 97 sets of data by using MARLAB software. Following this step, to illustrate the exact correlation between the given independent variable and dependent variable (the natural logarithm of R&D), after processing data filter the paper adopt curve fitting based on varying sets of data. According to the results from this study, the conclusions obtained can be divided into two streams. First type is the one that the hypothesis get support from this study. For instance, there is a significantly positive correlation between firm size and R&D expenditures as expected. Also, just as expected, a high sales growth rate is positively correlated with R&D expenditures based on given sample. Besides, it is proved in this paper that R&Di,t-1 have a lagged effect on the R&Dit expenditures. The other type is that hypothesis cannot be proved, no significant evidence have been found or not as effective as what have been estimated in hypothesis. For example, it is not reasonable to say the R&D expenditures and operating profit margin have a positive correlation. Moreover, the lnR&Dit and cash flow to sales income rate also have no obvious correlation. According to the analyses of two multiple variable models, all six variables can be regarded as the determinants of R&D expenditures; especially the variable of firm 3 / 105 size is the major. Additionally, some interesting findings provided in the end of this study.

Virtual reality is a rapidly growing innovation that has many real-world applications inengineering, healthcare, education and much more. More startups are emerging, and someof these companies are developing virtual reality simulators that allows the user toimmerse themselves completely in the virtual world with the use hardware devices.Companies like Infinadeck and Omnifinity have developed one such hardware known asthe walking simulator. This paper studied virtual reality and the barriers that occur whenlaunching a virtual reality walking simulator in the US for the entertainment industry. Theresearch was conducted on B2B companies that manufacture and use virtual realitywalking simulators with the addition of an industry outside of the entertainment industryto allow for comparison of the barriers. This study was a qualitative and comparativestudy based on a theoretical framework combined with empirical findings gathered fromeleven interviews with individuals from the manufacturers, entertainment center and themilitary. By analyzing and comparing the findings throughout this study, the authors canconclude that there are several barriers that can occur and affect launching a virtual realitywalking simulator process negatively. The barriers identified were price, hesitation to tryand reliability. These findings when analyzed with the theoretical framework identified that the emergence of these barriers was due to VR being such advanced technology. Thecustomers understanding of the value it creates is a determining factor when deciding tomake the purchase which showed to be highly complex with the VR walking simulator.The study also offers suggestions that can be taken for future research.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Wayne Nafziger / This dissertation constructs three empirical essays. The first essay illustrates the causality on the relationship between output (GDP) growth and exports. By using the Modified Wald (MWald) test we observe unidirectional causality from exports to GDP. More specifically, for the robustness we use a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) model and the Generalized Impulse Response Function Analysis (GIRA). The VECM and the GIRA yield bidirectional causality between exports and GDP, which weakly supports the unidirectional result of the to MWald test. Meanwhile, we confirm that there is structure break by using the structural break test. These results are plausible and consistent with the expectations of our study for the Export Led Growth Hypothesis (ELGH). However, compared with previous studies on the ELGH for Korea, our results are different. Other studies show a bidirectional causality relationship but this study only has unidirectional causality. These differences may be caused from different observation data, various variables, and use of different econometric methodologies. Also, model selection and omitting variables can also significantly change the results of causality testing. The second essay investigates a degree of competition between Korea's and China's exports in the U.S. market by using the substitute elasticity on a simple demand model. The market share of Korean exports has been decreasing while that of China's has been increasing. The results of this study are as follows. First, we find that Korea has a dominant market share of only goods group code 27 in commodity groups over that of China, otherwise having China's dominant market shares over those of Korea for other export sections by using historical trade data. Second, most estimates of substitute elasticity between both countries' exports in the U.S. market are small (inelastic). However, 61 (apparel articles and accessories, knit or crochet), 62 (apparel articles and accessories, not knit etc) and 85 (electric machinery etc, sound equipments, TV equipment, parts) commodity groups' substitute elasticities are large (elastic) and are competitive in the U.S. market compared with those of China. A small value of the elasticity of substitution may be due to an identification problem for a simple standard model as well as measurement errors in prices as a unit value in this study. So, in order to avoid problems such as these, we may need to use appropriate instrumental or proxy variables in the simple standard model, which highly correlate with the independent (unit price) variables and are uncorrelated with measurement error terms. In practice, it is not easy to find good instrumental variables. The final essay evaluates the roles of price and income as important factors that affect Korea's exports by using the most recent monthly data. By using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach we find the long-run relationship of variables and estimate the long-run price and income elasticities. However, the estimates of these long-run elasticities are statistically insignificant. This may be due to some misspecifications or measurement errors in our model. Meanwhile, due to the existence of the long-run relationship between variables, we construct the Error Correction Model (ECM) in order to observe the short-run dynamics of the elasticities. Specifically, we add a dummy variable into our export demand model to achieve more efficient estimations since the dummy variable reflects a shock in Korea's export; Korea's economic crisis in 1997. In contrast to the long-run elasticity, we find that the short-run elasticities' estimates are more statistically significant. When we use the structure break test to check the structural stability of Korea's export demand, we find that there is no structural break point of 1997. Therefore, a shock of Korea's economic crisis in 1997 might not significantly affect Korea's export demand in a given sample. However, the Information Technology (IT) bubble of the world economy in 2001 and the entry of Korea into the OECD had triggered an increase in Korea's export demand due to existing structural break points of both events. In addition, we find that income elasticities are larger than price elasticities in the short run. This implies that income has more of an impact than that of price for the export demand model in the short run. This also implies that the change of Korea's exports in the short run is more sensitive to changes in foreign income (industrial production) compared with that of price (exchange rate). An interesting result, thus, is that Korea's exports in the short run may have higher export performance on income than that of price (exchange rate). This might be a consequence of the dependence of an increase in foreign income in recent years. In recent years, developing countries have greatly increased their economic growth compared with that of developed countries and Korea's exports have increased into these developing countries. Thus, we confirm that an increase in Korea's exports is mainly affected by income compared with price, specifically in the short run by using recent data.