Produce patents or journal articles? A cross-country comparison of R&D productivity change

Chiang-Ping Chen (), Jin-Li Hu () and Chih-Hai Yang ()
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Chiang-Ping Chen: Taiwan Institute of Economic Research
Chih-Hai Yang: National Central University

Scientometrics, 2013, vol. 94, issue 3, No 2, 833-849

Abstract: Abstract This paper compares R&D productivity change across countries considering the fact that national R&D expenditure may produce multiple outputs, including patents and journal articles. Based on the concept of directional distance function and Luenberger productivity index, this paper develops a Luenberger R&D productivity change (LRC) index and then decomposes it into R&D efficiency change (catch-up effect) and R&D technical change (innovation effect). Utilizing a panel dataset of 29 countries over the 1998–2005 period to implement the empirical estimation, the results show that the R&D productivity growth is mainly attributed to the innovation effect; meanwhile, non-OECD countries have better performance on both efficiency change and technical change than their OECD counterparts. Moreover, patent-oriented R&D productivity growth serves as the main source of national R&D productivity growth than the journal article-oriented one.

Keywords: R&D productivity change; Patents; Journal articles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C67 O33 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-012-0811-9

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