Other Digital Innovation Economics: Research Programme

Forthcoming Research on Digital Transformation, Green Innovation, and Firm-Level Economic Performance

Forthcoming research programme examining the economics of digital transformation and green innovation — including firm-level efficiency impacts, sustainability-driven market dynamics, enterprise data analytics, and the intersection of digital technology adoption with regulatory and institutional pressures across emerging economies.

Active Research Programme — The first peer-reviewed publication from this programme has been accepted at IEEE GCET 2025 (Lyon, France). Additional papers and working papers will be published here as work is completed. Follow BRASS Digital Lab on LinkedIn for updates.

Published Work in This Programme

The inaugural paper in this strand was presented at the 2025 Global Congress on Emerging Technologies (IEEE GCET) in Lyon, France, and is now available on IEEE Xplore:

Niankara, I. (2025). Green Technology Innovation and Firm-Level Technical Efficiency: A Two-Stage Analysis in the Philippines. 2025 Global Congress on Emerging Technologies (GCET). IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/GCET68529.2025.11450674

The paper applies a two-stage DEA–Tobit methodology to 748 Philippine firms from the 2024 World Bank Enterprise Survey, finding that green innovation improves firm-level technical efficiency by 7.3–8.7%, with amplified gains for large urban manufacturers. Read the full paper →

Programme Overview

The Other Digital Innovation Economics research strand investigates how digital transformation and innovation — spanning green technologies, enterprise digitalisation, platform adoption, and data-driven governance — reshape firm performance, market structures, and sustainable development outcomes across diverse economic contexts.

Key research questions guiding this programme include:

• How does green technology adoption translate into measurable firm-level efficiency gains, and what firm characteristics amplify these effects?
• What institutional and regulatory pressures most effectively accelerate digital and sustainable innovation in emerging economies?
• How do digital infrastructure investments interact with firm size, sector, and geography to determine innovation returns?
• What measurement frameworks best capture the multi-dimensional nature of digital innovation value at the firm level?

Expected Contributions

This programme combines Data Envelopment Analysis, control-function econometrics, instrumental variable approaches, and enterprise survey data to deliver rigorous, policy-relevant insights on digital and green innovation economics — with applications to the UAE, GCC, Southeast Asia, and other emerging market contexts.

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Additional papers and working papers will appear here as they are completed.