Inverse Probability Weighted Generalised Empirical Likelihood Estimators: Firm Size and R&D Revisited

The inverse probability weighted Generalised Empirical Likelihood estimator is proposed for the estimation of the parameters of a vector of possibly non-linear unconditional moment functions in the presence of conditionally independent sample selection or attrition. The estimator is applied to the estimation of the firm size elasticity of product and process R&D expenditures using a panel of German manufacturing firms, which is affected by attrition and selection into R&D activities.

Public Funding of R&D and Growth: Firm-level Evidence from Finland

This study considers employment and productivity growth generated by the public funding of R&D using linked employer-employee data in Finland. Public subsidies, instrumented by available public R&D funding in the industry/region, have a positive effect on productivity growth in small and medium-sized firms and in firms close to the top of their field in productivity.

Effects of Acquisitions on Product and Process Innovation and R&D Performance

Using a game theoretical model on firms simultaneous investments in product and process innovation, the authors deduct and empirically test hypotheses on the optimal R&D portfolio, investment, performance, and dynamic efficiency of R&D for acquisitions and in independently competing firms. They use Community Innovation Survey data on Italian manufacturing firms.

Human Capital Composition, R&D and the Increasing Role of Services

A growth model with endogenous innovation and accumulation of high-tech and low-tech human capital is developed. The model accounts for a recently established fact about human capital composition, which stated that the richest countries are investing proportionally less than middle income countries in engineering and technical human capital, due to the consideration of a negative effect of technological development on the accumulation of high-tech human capital.

What Drives Trade-related R&D Spillovers? Decomposing Knowledge- diffusing Trade Flows

This paper decomposes knowledge-diffusing trade flows and estimates their impacts separately. Overall, trade generates positive knowledge spillovers, but the effects of intra-industry trade are ambiguous. With regard to sectoral import penetration, the authors find that potential positive spillovers are dominated by negative competition effects.

R&D Races and Spillovers between the EU and the US: Some Causal Evidence

This paper examines the causal relationships between the R&D sector activities of the EU and the US in a multivariate framework. As a novelty in this literature, we employ the subset transfer function methodology to account for the possibility of “dry holes” in the effects of R&D efforts on economic activity. The authors find that R&D activity in the EU is a direct Granger-cause of both R&D and economy-wide productivity in the US, and the effects are negative.

R&D Races and Spillovers between the EU and the US: Some Causal Evidence

This paper examines the causal relationships between the R&D sector activities of the EU and the US in a multivariate framework. As a novelty in this literature, we employ the subset transfer function methodology to account for the possibility of “dry holes” in the effects of R&D efforts on economic activity. The authors find that R&D activity in the EU is a direct Granger-cause of both R&D and economy-wide productivity in the US, and the effects are negative.

From Ideas to Development: The Determinants of R&D and Patenting

This paper uses panel regressions to investigate the effects of innovation policies and framework factors on business R&D intensity and patenting for a sample of 20 OECD countries over the period 1982-2001. Both sets of factors are found to matter; the main determinants of innovativeness appear to be the availability of scientists and engineers, research conducted in the public sector (including universities), business-academic links, the degree of product market competition, a high level of financial development and access to foreign inventions.