Does R&D spur productivity growth in Australia’s broadacre agriculture? A semi-parametric smooth coefficient approach

This article analyses the role of research and development (R&D) in Australia’s broadacre farming by using the semi-parametric smooth coefficient model. While the conventional production function approach only captures the direct effects of R&D, this methodology captures both the direct impact of a change in R&D on output and the indirect impact through changes in efficiency of use of factor inputs in the production process. Moreover, technical inefficiency is introduced in the model allowing it as a function of R&D. Using a unique state-level dataset covering the period 1995–2007, this empirical study finds that once both the direct and indirect effects are taken into consideration, R&D investments significantly increase outputs. The results also show that there are substantial variations in the effects of R&D on output across the state-level average farm through technology parameters as well as through technical inefficiency. Such variations need to be taken into account when designing policies for investing public R&D in agriculture.     

Has New Zealand benefited from its investments in research & development?

We use panel data for nine industries to evaluate research and development (R&D) investments in New Zealand over the past forty years. We estimate the impact of R&D stocks in a particular industry on output per person in that industry and on output per person in the rest of the economy. We examine both public and private R&D investments. Privately provided R&D has a statistically significant positive impact on own-industry output per person, suggesting it increases productivity. However, publicly provided R&D has no impact on own-industry output per person. There is also evidence that private R&D in certain industries positively affects output per person in the rest of the economy, i.e. it generates positive spillovers. There is no evidence of positive spillovers from publicly provided R&D.     

Business type,industry value chain,and R&D performance: Evidence from high-tech firms in an emerging market

This study focuses on how the business type and technological learning mode, which a high-tech firm chooses based on its core competence, influence the firm's R&D strategies, which in turn affect firm performance. This study also explores how the interaction between a firm's business type and industry value chain stage affects the relationship between R&D investments and operating performance. We suggest that the linkage of R&D investments and operating performance will increase gradually, when firms move from contract manufacturing to own brand business. R&D investments can contribute more to performance when firms adopt the hybrid business type. Furthermore, R&D investments generate more significant benefits for the own brand companies than the contract manufacturers at the same stage of the industry value chain. R&D investments of the downstream contract manufacturers have a negative impact on firm performance. Regardless of business type, firms in the upstream (midstream) stage of the industry value chain outperform downstream stage firms in deriving benefits from R&D activities. Finally, the lagged effects of R&D investments on operating performance are affected by the interaction between business type and industry value chain.     

共享产出关联视角下中国工业企业绿色研发投入效率测度与分解

绿色研发投入活动是整个绿色创新链的前端环节,工业企业的绿色研发投入是中国进行绿色创新的重要阶段。通过构建包含共享投入、共享产出和中间产出的两阶段DEA模型,从技术开发和经济转化两阶段视角出发,对中国31个省份的工业企业绿色研发投入效率进行研究,结果表明:中国工业企业绿色研发投入效率整体水平偏低,区域发展差异较低,东部地区的整体水平明显高于东北部、西部和中部地区;经济转化的效率均值优于技术开发的效率均值,技术开发效率水平低下是绿色研发投入整体效率水平低下的主要原因。     

Induced technological change and the attractiveness of CO2 abatement policies

This paper investigates the significance of induced technological change (ITC) for the attractiveness of CO₂ abatement policies. We use analytical and numerical general equilibrium models in which technological change results from profit-maximizing investments in R&D. We show that carbon abatement policies have very different impacts on R&D across industries, and do not necessarily raise the economy-wide rate of technological progress. Focusing only on the sectors with positive R&D impacts can lead to substantial underassessment of the GDP costs of CO₂ abatement policies. The presence of ITC implies lower costs of achieving a given abatement target, but it implies higher gross costs (costs before netting out environment-related benefits) of a given carbon tax. Gross costs depend importantly on the efficiency of R&D markets prior to the introduction of CO₂ policies.     

低碳约束下中国全要素生产率的时空演变——基于Sequential Malmquist-Luenberger生产率指数分解方法

在全要素框架下运用基于连续前沿的Malmquist-Luenberger生产率增长指数方法,估算了1987—2009年中国28个省(自治区、直辖市)的低碳全要素生产率、技术进步和效率改善,对中国低碳全要素生产率的总体发展、区域差异进行实证分析。然后,利用核密度估计,对累积相对低碳全要素生产率增长、累积相对技术进步和累积相对效率改善做分布动态演进分析。结果表明:考察期内中国整体的低碳全要素生产率趋于上升,但上升幅度逐渐减小;东、中、西三大区域的低碳全要素生产率存在显著差异,呈东高西低的增长格局;东、中部地区的低碳全要素生产率提升是技术进步和效率改善共同推进的结果;西部地区的低碳全要素生产率提升仅靠技术进步驱动,效率改善存在退步迹象;省际间的低碳全要素生产率呈一定程度的"俱乐部收敛"特征,技术进步有明显的"追赶效应"。     

Research and development and labour productivity: do high-tech firms exhibit labour- or capital-saving technical change?

Employment and output in the advanced technology sectors have generally exhibited above-average growth for more than two decades. While this industry accounts for a relatively small share of total employment, the majority of private sector research and development (R&D) expenditures in the US is concentrated within seven sub-sectors. However, little attention has been paid as to whether high-tech productivity exhibits Hicksian capital or labour ‘savings’ bias or tendency to displace either factor input over time. Biased technical change can occur as economies transition between growth regimes. An augmented production function is employed to analyse the additional impact of R&D activity on firm-level labour productivity. A panel data set comprised of high-tech firms located across the advanced economies, China and India from 1990 to 2013 is used in the analysis. Labour-saving technical change was present across the advanced technology sectors and most countries. The expanded models of labour productivity that used fixed effects with lagged regressors confirmed the prior results as well as finding that R&D per employee, relative R&D intensity and firm market share contribute to firm-level labour productivity growth across countries and sectors. Additional support was found for diminishing returns to scale but not for R&D spillover effects.     

Science,innovation, and public services: editorial introduction

ABSTRACT

The quality of public services is critically influenced by innovation and, ultimately, by advances in basic research, which however embeds the feature of a global public good. Two broad issues emerge. The first concerns the evaluation of the socio-economic impact of science. What are the benefits and spillovers that R&D investments, research infrastructures and big science can bring to society? The second concerns which type of institutions and policies are most suitable for supporting R&D activities. These topics discussed in this article represent the core of the special issue “Innovation and Public Services: from the lab to enterprises and citizens”     

Does R&D spending boost tangible investment? An analysis on European firms

This article investigates the relationship between firm’s R&D intensity, expressed as R&D expenditure over sales, and investment intensity in tangible assets. It is commonly acknowledged that R&D requires additional physical investment to be implemented. R&D increases a firm’s productivity and return to tangible investments, thus, providing to the firm incentives to bear high tangible capital costs and to invest more. This represents a crucial issue for a firm’s growth, particularly considering the strong interaction between physical capital accumulation and technological progress. The analysis is based on a large sample of manufacturing firms across seven European countries in the period 2007–2009. Since the sub-sample of firms performing R&D might not be random, there may potentially be an endogeneity issue. The analysis also considers that firms may decide to spend on R&D and investment in physical capital simultaneously. The questions of both endogeneity and simultaneity are dealt with by employing an instrumental variable two-step procedure. We find a positive and significant impact of R&D intensity on firms’ tangible investment intensity. The econometric results highlight the importance of financial factors, particularly with respect to firms’ internal resources. Exposure to international trade has a negative impact on investment, possibly depending on the time-span of the sample used.

Abbreviations: Technological Innovation and R&D; Investment Capital; Industry Studies; Firm Behavior; Empirical Analysis     

Cooperation or competition in R&D when innovation and absorption are costly

This article analyzes cost-reducing R&D investments by firms that behave non-cooperatively or cooperatively. Firms face a trade-off between allocating their R&D investments to innovate or to imitate (absorb). We find that the non-cooperative behavior not only induces more imitation (absorption) but also, for the most part, more innovation investments. Only the cooperative behavior, however, ensures that R&D investments are allocated efficiently to innovation and to imitation (absorption) in the sense that any given amount of industry-wide cost reduction is obtained for the minimum overall R&D costs.     

区域对外贸易与制造业产业结构间关系的实证研究——基于省级制造业行业动态面板数据

利用2000—2010年我国省级制造业行业动态面板数据,运用系统广义矩估计方法,实证研究了我国东、中和西部地区的出口和进口对制造业产业结构的影响。研究结果显示:东部地区的出口与资源密集型行业和劳动密集型行业的"行业产值与制造业总产值的比值"存在负相关关系,与资本密集型行业和资本技术密集型行业的"行业产值与制造业总产值的比值"存在正相关关系;东部地区的出口促进了制造业产业结构的升级,中、西部地区的情况与之相反;三大区域的进口均促进了制造业产业结构的升级;促进三大区域制造业产业结构升级的主要因素是国内投资和技术进步;东部地区的FDI、居民收入水平和金融发展水平促进了其制造业产业结构的升级,而中、西部地区的FDI没有促进其制造业产业结构的升级,中、西部地区的居民收入水平和金融发展水平对制造业产业结构升级的促进效果不明显。     

Strategic Rivalry With Spillovers Within Segmented Versus Integrated Markets

We consider a two-stage game with firms investing in R&D in the first stage while competing [a] la Cournot in the second stage. The firms are located in two countries, which are either segmented or integrated. R&D spillovers occur between firms located in the same country as well as between firms located in different countries.

We first examine the consequences of market integration on the impact of national and international R&D spillovers on innovative efforts, effective R&D, profits and total welfare. Comparing the resulting equilibrium levels, we subsequently conclude that market integration always leads to higher R&D investments and output if international R&D spillovers are limited, while the welfare consequences are ambiguous. Finally, we also analyze the welfare maximization problem of a ‘constrained social planner who can only decide on the level of R&D spillovers.     

新兴产业与传统产业互动发展的区域差异与变动趋势--基于灰色关联模型的实证研究

基于灰色关联模型设计用于评价产业互动发展状况的产业关联协调指标体系,测度并比较中国东、中、西部地区新兴产业与传统产业互动发展状况及其影响因素的区域差异与变动趋势。研究表明,三大区域传统产业对新兴产业发展的主要胁迫因素均体现为传统产业的工业总产值和R＆amp;D经费内部支出;但新兴产业对传统产业发展的主要胁迫因素存在地区差异,东部为新兴产业利润总额和工业总产值,中部为企业数量和利润总额,西部为R＆amp;D经费内部支出和工业总产值。总的来看,尽管两类产业互动发展的关联度都在中等以上水平,但整体协调度均不高,且区域间存在明显差异,呈现中部高、东西部低的空间分布特征,三大区域新兴产业与传统产业间均未形成显著的良性互动。同时,不同区域协调度也存在较大的时空演化差异。     

Quantitative growth effects of subsidies in a search theoretic R&D model

Should government subsidize R&D and does it matter how these subsidies are allocated? We examine these questions in a dynamic model where R&D is described as sequential sampling from a distribution of new ideas. Successful discoveries affect future available resources and incentives for further R&D. Consequently, there may be under-investment in R&D. We study the effect of government interventions aimed at fostering growth through R&D. Calibrating the model with aggregate data from the Israeli business sector allows us to quantitatively compare two forms of support resembling those actually used to encourage R&D in the Israeli business sector: (i) an unrestricted subsidy that may be used at the recipients' discretion to finance R&D or other investments, (ii) a subsidy earmarked by the government for R&D activities only. While there is no theoretical way to determine which of the two subsidies will have a greater impact on search for new ideas and growth, we find that in the calibrated economy both subsidies have a significant but similar impact on the economy's output and TFP growth rates. Accordingly, in the case of the Israeli business sector, the incentives to conduct R&D were sufficiently strong, and no R&D-specific encouragement was needed. However, a sensitivity analysis reveals that for economies characterized by other parameter values this result may not be true. Correspondence to: B. Bental     

A compared R&D-based and patent-based cross impact analysis for identifying relationships between technologies

The planning of technological research and development (R&D) is demanding in areas with many relationships between technologies. To support decision makers of a government organization with R&D planning in these areas, a methodology to make the technology impact more transparent is introduced. The method shows current technology impact and impact trends from the R&D of an organization's competitors and compares these to the technology impact and impact trends from the organization's own R&D. This way, relative strength, relative weakness, plus parity of the organization's R&D activities in technology pairs can be identified.A quantitative cross impact analysis (CIA) approach is used to estimate the impact across technologies. Our quantitative CIA approach contrasts to standard qualitative CIA approaches that estimate technology impact by means of literature surveys and expert interviews. In this paper, the impact is computed based on the R&D information regarding the respective organization on one hand, and based on patent data representative regarding R&D information of the organization's competitors on the other hand. As an illustration, the application field ‘defence’ is used, where many interrelations and interdependencies between defence-based technologies occur. Firstly, an R&D-based and patent-based Compared Cross Impact (CCI) among technologies is computed. Secondly, characteristics of the CCI are identified. Thirdly, the CCI data is presented as a network to show the overall structure and the complex relationships between the technologies. Finally, changes of the CCI are analyzed over time. The results show that the proposed methodology has the potential to generate useful insights for government organizations to help direct technology investments.     

A dynamic general equilibrium model for public R&D investment in Taiwan

In terms of economic development policies, public research and development (R&D) investment may be one of the most critical and useful tools in Taiwan, having frequently played a role in leading related overall investment in Taiwan. Although the impact channels of R&D investment are varied and complex, its benefits in terms of the development of human capital, industrial productivity, and basic research are clear. With the rapid growth of the private sector in the Taiwan economy, it is, however, debatable whether the government should continue to use the public financial budget to invest in R&D. By using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the impact of public R&D investment on the economy in Taiwan, the empirical evidence of the present paper is that public R&D investment gives rise to different short-term and medium-term impacts on real GDP that are mostly felt in the third or fourth years of their implementation among different industries. These impacts then gradually converge back to equilibrium in the long run. Public R&D investment boosts the technology of high-tech industries and increases exports, but it also crowds out the output of primary industries. Although the public R&D investment has a positive effect on the real wage, its effect on inflation should not be overlooked. Because of the pros and cons surrounding the impact of public R&D investment on industries and the economy, the study provided by the present paper can serve as valuable reference not only to decision-makers in government agencies but also to academic researchers.     

The Damoclean tax and innovation

The paper presents a novel tax that is designed to improve the performance of research and development (R&D) investments. Ideally, the tax allows the technical efficiencies of monopoly while bringing about the desirable effects of the competitive pressure of R&D rivalry. Thus, with the tax, the state can sanction a monopoly of R&D investment in order to attain technical efficiencies and yet avoid the underinvestment in R&D that would result without competitive pressures. A critique of the tax emphasizes the problems of implementing it and offers a more practical alternative that would achieve the same desirable effects.     

中国区域绿色发展效率与绿色全要素生产率：2000—2010——基于参数共同边界的实证研究

本文运用参数化共同边界与Luenberger生产率指标相结合的方法,研究环境约束下2000—2010年中国区域绿色发展效率和绿色全要素生产率增长。实证结果表明,与中西部地区相比,东部地区不仅绿色发展效率高,而且生产技术水平更加贴近潜在水平;总体上,东部地区绿色全要素生产率是进步的,而中西部地区却表现出负增长的现象,东部地区效率变化和技术进步的表现皆优于中西部地区.进一步的分解结果显示,纯技术进步成为了推动我国绿色全雩素生产率增长的主要动力,而纯效率变化的贡献较小甚至对生产率增长产生消极的作用;从纯粹技术追赶来看,东部地区的生产技术不断靠近潜在生产技术,而中西部地区则表现出生产技术愈发落后于潜在水平的趋势;潜在技术相对变动方面,三大区域都表现出技术发展空间不断压缩的现象。     

R&;D: A Small Contribution to Productivity Growth

In this article I evaluate the contribution of R&D investments to productivity growth. The basis for the analysis are the free entry condition and the fact that most R&D innovations are embodied. Free entry yields a relationship between the resources devoted to R&D and the growth rate of technology. Since innovators are small, this relationship is not directly affected by the size of R&D externalities, or the presence of aggregate diminishing returns in R&D after controlling for the growth rate of output and the interest rate. The embodiment of R&D-driven innovations bounds the size of the production externalities. The resulting contribution of R&D to productivity growth in the US is smaller than 3–5 tenths of 1% point. This constitutes an upper bound for the case where innovators internalize the consequences of their R&D investments on the cost of conducting future innovations. From a normative perspective, this analysis implies that, if the innovation technology takes the form assumed in the literature, the actual US R&D intensity may be the socially optimal.     

R&;D and productivity: testing sectoral peculiarities using micro data

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between a firm’s R&D activities and its productivity using a unique micro data panel dataset and looking at sectoral peculiarities which may emerge; more specifically, we used an unbalanced longitudinal database consisting of 532 top European R&D investors over the 6-year period 2000–2005. Our main findings can be summarised along the following lines: knowledge stock has a significant positive impact on a firm’s productivity, with an overall elasticity of about 0.104; this general result is largely consistent with previous literature in terms of the sign, the significance and the estimated magnitude of the relevant coefficient. More interestingly, the coefficient increases monotonically when we move from the low-tech to the medium-high and high-tech sectors, ranging from a minimum of 0.03/0.05 to a maximum of 0.14/0.17. This outcome suggests that firms in high-tech sectors are still far ahead in terms of the impact on productivity of their R&D investments, at least as regards top European R&D investors.