A Cross‐national Comparison of R&D Expenditure Decisions: Tax Incentives and Financial Constraints*

We provide evidence on the impact of tax incentives and financial constraints on corporate R&D expenditure decisions. We contribute to extant research by comparing R&D expenditures in the United States and Canada, thereby exploiting the differences in the two countries' R&D tax credit mechanisms and generally accepted accounting principles. The two tax incentive mechanism designs are consistent with differing views of the degree of financial constraints faced by firms in these economies. Our sample also allows us to explore the effects of capitalizing R&D on Canadian firms. Employing a matched design, we document relations between tax credit incentives and R&D spending consistent with both Canadian and U.S. public companies responding as though they are not financially constrained. We estimate that the Canadian credit system induces, on average, $1.30 of additional R&D spending per dollar of taxes forgone while the U.S. system induces, on average, $2.96 of additional spending. We also find that firms that capitalize R&D costs in Canada spend, on average, 18 percent more on R&D. Collectively, this evidence is important to the ongoing debates in both countries concerning the appropriate design of incentives for R&D and is consistent with the assumptions found in the U.S. tax credit system, but not those found in the Canadian system.     

Scientific and technological dimensions of the macrostructural forecast

This paper explores possible approaches to quantifying the relationship between expenditures on research and development and economic development. The mechanisms that underpin the transfer of scientific results via the imports of final products, goods, and services have been analyzed. The impact of total R&D costs on the dynamic and structural characteristics of economic development are investigated. The level of R&D costs, which is required in the medium term in order to pursue the constructive scenario for the development of the Russian economy, has been estimated.     

R&D,trade in intermediate inputs,and the comparative advantage of advanced countries

This paper examines the accumulation of physical capital versus knowledge (R&D) capital as a determinant of advanced countries’ comparative advantage. I show that advanced countries are abundant in R&D resources, specialize in knowledge-intensive stages of high-technology industries, and outsource labor-intensive stages of the industries to labor-abundant countries. In contrast, global data on production and trade cannot support the conventional view that advanced countries specialize in and export capital-intensive goods. My results indicate that the accumulation of knowledge capital plays a vital role in explaining advanced countries’ comparative advantage.     

Patenting activity and elements of market structure in the Dutch manufacturing industry

Summary On the basis of econometric analysis this survey shows how patent intensity (number of patents in relation to sales) is positively influenced by technological opportunity and expected profit, and negatively by industry size and concentration. In addition, it is investigated whether patents can be used as a proxy for both inventive and innovative activity. To this question no definite answer could be given. A contradictory relationship was found between the R&D/sales ratio and the patents/sales ratio, which in this case merely shows how research based on firm data and industry data can come up with very different results. A general implication is that for studies on the Dutch manufacturing industry the aggregation from firm level to industry level should be treated with caution.The author works for Corporate Development & Economics Department of Unilever N.V. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily coincide with those of my employer.This article is based on the dissertation that I wrote for the MA in Economics programme at the University of East Anglia (UK). I would like to thank Dr S. Davies, Dr B. Lyons, and G. Hockley Morley for their useful comments, Vanda Morgan for her help with the language and Eline Rossen for her help in finalising this paper. Any errors are mine.     

R&D,unemployment, and labor market policies

This paper studies the effects of labor market policies on R&D activities and unemployment. I develop a search and matching model in which firms’ R&D decisions are endogenously determined. The model demonstrates that more intensive labor market policies that protect workers reduce the levels of R&D activities. This study offers a theoretical framework to understand the relationship between R&D activities, labor market policies, and unemployment which is discussed in empirical studies.     

Do CEO's early-life marketization experiences affect the innovation behavior of SMEs?

We investigate the relationship between chief executive officers’ (CEOs) early-life exposure to marketization transition and the research and development (R&D) intensity of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We find that there is a significant positive relationship between the early-life transition experiences of CEOs and the R&D intensity of SMEs. CEOs who have experienced higher stages of marketization transition are significantly more likely to engage in proactive innovation activities. The means of the potential R&D intensity distributions are increasing in the treatment level, although this increasing trend is not always significant. Overall, the results confirm the view that experiencing a transition in early-life significantly facilitates CEOs’ engagement in innovation activities.     

R&D,financing constraints and export green-sophistication in China

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effects of R&D and financing constraints on the green-sophistication of Chinese firm exports. The theoretical model predicts that firms' R&D expenditure improves the level of green sophistication and financing constraints have moderating effects on firms' the export green-sophistication. The paper constructs an index of the export green-sophistication by incorporating green coefficient in traditional export sophistication. We use the data from the China industrial firm database and confirm our theoretical predictions. The financing constraints are found to have a significant moderating effects on the relationship between R&D and export green-sophistication in basic test and robustness check.     

R&D Tournaments with Spillovers

This paper studies the influence of uncertainty and spillovers on a contestant's R&D spending. The relationship between market structure and R&D spending is shown to be sensitive to the form of uncertainty that characterizes the R&D process. When reward to the winner is endogenously determined by R&D spending, a contestant's R&D spending may increase with the degree of spillovers.     

R&D Spillovers for Public R&D Productivity

ABSTRACT

This paper empirically investigates whether the productivity of a public (government-funded) R&D project improves when the aggregate R&D investment in the same technology field increases. Based on the unique project level data that cover almost entire public R&D projects in Korea, this paper shows that aggregate investment in other public R&D projects in the same technology field increases a public R&D project’s outputs both independent of its project expenditure (additive spillover effects) and interactive with its project expenditure (multiplicative spillover effects). The spillover effects from the aggregate private R&D investment in the same technology field also exist, but to a much lesser extent.     

Process and product R&D by a multiproduct monopolist

It is shown that the claim in Lambertini that a multiproductmonopolist's incentive for process R&D declines with thenumber of products it offers is incorrect. This incentive isin fact an increasing function of the number of products inhis model. I further extend the model of Lambertini to showthat whether or not process R&D incentive and the numberof varieties are positively related depends on the degree ofscope economies in process R&D. Product innovation promotesprocess R&D if the degree of such scope economies is high(as in Lambertini), and discourages it if the degree of scopeeconomies is low.     

Collaboration in R&D: An Assessment of Theoretical and Empirical Findings

Focusing on the management of voluntary and involuntary transfers of know-how in imperfect competition, the Industrial Organisation models on R&D cooperation have generated results that seem to be robust across a wide variety of models. This paper reviews the mainstream IO models and results. A major finding is that when spillovers exceed some critical level, cooperation in R&D is beneficial to technical progress and leads to higher profits for the partners. Trying to further enrich these models, recent theoretical developments have studied the issues of stability of R&D cooperation, explaining why attractive alliances are not always formed. The various mechanisms, which this literature suggests to turn R&D cooperation into stable profitable agreements, are discussed. Finally, the scarce empirical evidence that exists to test some of the theoretical hypotheses is reviewed.     

R&D and patenting activities of foreign firms in China: The case of Japan

This study investigates the research and development (R&D) and patenting activities of foreign firms in China. Utilizing a panel dataset of Japanese affiliates during the period 2001–2007, we first examine the determinants of R&D activity and find that local market-oriented firms place more emphasis on R&D, whereas process export-oriented firms are less likely to conduct R&D. Affiliates within a large business group that has more affiliates have a higher propensity to undertake R&D. Using only firms with positive R&D expenditures, we next estimate the patent production function. Results indicate that the patent elasticity of R&D for Japanese affiliates is high, suggesting that they are more productive on patent production than other firms. Moreover, local market-oriented firms do need more patents to protect their products, whereas scientific firms demonstrate a lower willingness to register patents in China.     

Self-selection and performance of R&D input of heterogeneous firms: Evidence from China's manufacturing industries

Applying the theories of heterogeneous firms and the propensity score matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method to a rich dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms, this paper examines the self-selection of firm-level R&D input and estimates the net effect of R&D on productivity. The analysis shows that (1) for Chinese manufacturing firms as a whole, R&D input is influenced by firm productivity: more productive firms are more likely to invest in R&D; (2) controlling for the self-selection effect, the net output elasticities of R&D input in one year and two years after R&D input are 3.92% and 5.25%, respectively; (3) although state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are more likely than all other ownership groups to invest in R&D, the R&D input is not productive; (4) although enterprises owned by investors outside of Mainland China are the least likely to invest in R&D, the output elasticity of R&D is more significant and larger in this group than in SOEs and privately owned Chinese firms; and (5) surprisingly, the net effect of R&D is not significant in high-tech industries. Policy implications are derived from the findings.     

A Duality Between Cost-Reducing R&D versus Quality-Improving R&D and Welfare Analysis in a Hotelling Model

Two versions of research and development (R&D) activities in a Hotelling model with endogenous spillover effect, one with cost-reducing R&D and the other with quality-improving R&D, are analyzed in this paper. The result points out that two such kinds of R&D activities will share identical strategic properties, and that we shall be able to derive the equilibrium strategies of a quality-improving R&D model from those of a cost-reducing R&D model, and vice versa. It is found that the special market demand in a Hotelling model in fact plays a crucial role as well. This paper also provides a welfare analysis, the results of which show that government intervention via taxing the locations and subsidizing R&D efforts can remedy the market failure resulting from excess differentiation on locations and under-investment on R&D expenditures in non-cooperative equilibrium.     

Endogenous production of R&D and stable economic development

Summary Changes in production technology are usually a result of R&D efforts. In this paper a model is presented in which technological change emanates from production factors used for R&D. The model consists of two production sectors, one concerned with the production of consumption and investment goods, the other with that of new technologies. By means of this model we analyse the impact of R&D on the level of immediate income and the efficient allocation of production factors over both sectors. Furthermore, the existence of a steady state in this model is examined. It turns out that such a state is only possible under restrictive conditions.     

研发效率、技术溢出与政府的创新补贴

 在一个三阶段博弈模型的基础上,本文研究了存在技术溢出情况下政府的创新激励政策与企业的研发策略。结果表明,无论是实行竞争型创新补贴政策还是合作型创新补贴政策,政府都应该优先补贴那些低成本、高效率的创新行为。贸易自由化提高了国家的创新补贴水平,但是技术溢出本身对创新补贴的影响却具有不确定性。文章的结果同时显示,贸易便利化的实施与高技术溢出提高了消费者剩余与国民福利水平。贸易壁垒虽然强化了企业对本国市场的垄断,但是,在考虑了政府的创新补贴政策后,具有创新激励的企业实际上更倾向于自由贸易结果,因此,相对于严格的专利保护制度,创新补贴政策可能更容易促进国民福利水平的提高。     

Investigating the relationship between health and economic growth: Empirical evidence from a panel of 5 Asian countries

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between health and economic growth through including investment, exports, imports, and research and development (R&D), for 5 Asian countries using panel unit root, panel cointegration with structural breaks and panel long-run estimator for the period 1974–2007. We model this relationship within the production function framework, and unravel two important results. First, we find that in all four variants of the growth model, variables share a long-run relationship; that is, they are cointegrated. Second, we find that in the long-run, while health, investment, exports, EDRD (the interaction term between education and R&D), and R&D have contributed positively to economic growth, imports have had a statistically significant negative effect while education has had an insignificant effect. We draw important policy implications from these findings.     

R&;D and Exporting: A Comparison of British and Irish Firms

This paper investigates the two-way relationship between R&D and export activity. In particular, we concern ourselves with the question whether R&D stimulates exports and, perhaps more importantly, whether export activity leads to increasing innovative activity in terms of R&D (learning-by-exporting). We use two unique firm level databases for Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland and compare the results for these two countries. We find that previous exporting experience enhances the innovative capability of Irish firms. Conversely, no strong learning-by-exporting effects are found for British firms. Arguably part of the differences between Ireland and Britain are attributable to different, cross-country exporting patterns where Irish firms have a greater interface with OECD markets. JEL no.  F14, F23     

The Innovation Threshold

Summary This paper discusses a model for analysing the sales of new products. This model accounts for the fact that, even among those companies with permanent R&D activities, a fraction of the firms did not have sales of innovative products over a two-year observation period. We propose a model in which the fixed costs of introduction are a major concern in the decision-making process. We apply a censored regression model, extended by a firm-specific threshold. We use a structural model to estimate the fixed costs of introducing new products to the market, and explain subsequent sales of innovative products. We examine an indicator of innovative output, i.e. the sales of products ‘new to the firm’. We estimate fixed cost thresholds by using data from the Dutch section of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) of 1998. R&D intensity, competition, and market structure all have a positive impact on the sales of new products. The most important factors that reduce the fixed cost threshold of introduction are product-related R&D investments, R&D subsidies, and knowledge spillovers. We would like to thank Geert Ridder, Alfred Kleinknecht and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and discussion.     

Subsidizing R&D Cooperatives

A framework is developed with which the implementation of two commonly used R&D-stimulating policies can be evaluated: providing R&D subsidies and sustaining the formation of R&D cooperatives. Subsidized R&D cooperatives can also be analyzed. The analysis shows that providing R&D subsidies is more effective in raising private R&D investments than sustaining R&D cooperatives. Moreover, optimally subsidizing cooperative R&D or noncooperative R&D leads to the same level of R&D activity. Sustaining R&D cooperatives thus appears to be a redundant industrial policy, all else equal.