Are economically advanced countries more efficient in basic and applied research?

Vladimír Holý () and Karel Šafr ()
Additional contact information
Vladimír Holý: University of Economics, Prague
Karel Šafr: University of Economics, Prague

Central European Journal of Operations Research, 2018, vol. 26, issue 4, No 7, 933-950

Abstract: Abstract Research and development (R&D) of countries play a major role in a long-term development of the economy. We measure the R&D efficiency of all 28 member countries of the European Union in the years 2008–2014. Super-efficient data envelopment analysis (DEA) based on robustness of classification into efficient and inefficient units is adopted. We use the number of citations as output of basic research, the number of patents as output of applied research and R&D expenditures with manpower as inputs. To meet DEA assumptions and to capture R&D characteristics, we analyze a homogeneous sample of countries, adjust prices using purchasing power parity and consider time lag between inputs and outputs. We find that the efficiency of general R&D is higher for countries with higher GDP per capita. This relation also holds for specialized efficiencies of basic and applied research. However, it is much stronger for applied research suggesting its outputs are more easily distinguished and captured. Our findings are important in the evaluation of research and policy making.

Keywords: Research and development; Basic and applied research; Efficiency; Data envelopment analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10100-018-0559-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:cejnor:v:26:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10100-018-0559-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/10100

DOI: 10.1007/s10100-018-0559-2

Access Statistics for this article

Central European Journal of Operations Research is currently edited by Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger

More articles in Central European Journal of Operations Research from Springer, Slovak Society for Operations Research, Hungarian Operational Research Society, Czech Society for Operations Research, Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR), Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research, Croatian Operational Research Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().