International Comparisons of R&D Expenditure: Does an R&D PPP Make a Difference?

Sean M. Dougherty (), Robert Inklaar (), Robert H. McGuckin and Bart van Ark ()

No 12829, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Purchasing power parities (PPPs) for R&D expenditure in 19 manufacturing industries are developed for France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom relative to the United States for the years 1997 and 1987. These PPPs are based on R&D input prices for specific cost categories and differ substantially from current practice of comparing R&D expenditure using GDP PPPs and deflators. After taking into account differences in the relative price of R&D labor and materials, separate PPPs for other R&D cost categories are less essential, and a simpler version using GDP PPPs for these other categories should suffice. Our preferred PPPs are used to compare international R&D costs and intensity. The results suggest that the efforts devoted to R&D in each country are more similar across countries than is apparent using the nominal R&D intensities that are currently the norm.

JEL-codes: C43 L16 L60 O32 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino and nep-ipr
Date: Written
Note: PR
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Published as Sean M. Dougherty, Robert Inklaar, Robert H. McGuckin, Bart van Ark. "International Comparisons of R&D Expenditure: Does an R&D PPP Make a Difference?," in Ernst R. Berndt and Charles R. Hulten, editors, "Hard-to-Measure Goods and Services: Essays in Honor of Zvi Griliches" University of Chicago Press (2007)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12829.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Working Paper: International Comparisons of R&D Expenditure: Does an R&D PPP make a difference? (2006)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12829

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12829
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().