The Anatomy of Industry R&D Intensity Distributions

Wesley M Cohen and Steven Klepper

American Economic Review, 1992, vol. 82, issue 4, 773-99

Abstract: Using firm data disaggregated by industry, the authors establish a set of regularities in the distribution of firm R&D intensities within manufacturing industries. The authors show how a simple probabilistic process, in which change influences a key unobserved determinant of R&D and firm size conditions the returns to R&D, can account for these regularities and other features of the distributions. The model provides a unified, noncausal explanation of a series of long-observed relationships across mean R&D intensity, market concentration, and the coefficient of variation. It also offers a novel explanation for the inverse relationship between R&D productivity and firm size. Copyright 1992 by American Economic Association.

Date: 1992
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