R&D and Non-Linear Productivity Growth of Heterogeneous Firms

d'Artis Kancs and Boriss Siliverstovs

No 2012-06, JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: The present paper studies the relationship between R&D investment and firm productivity growth by explicitly accounting for non-linearities in the R&D-productivity relationship and inter-sectoral firm heterogeneity. In order to address these issues, we employ a two step estimation approach, and match two firm-level panel data sets for the OECD countries, which allows us to relax both the linearity and homogeneity assumptions of the canonical Griliches (1979) knowledge capital model. Our results suggest that: (i) R&D investment increases firm productivity with an average elasticity of 0.15; (ii) the impact of R&D investment on firm productivity is differential at different levels of R&D intensity the productivity elasticity ranges from -0.02 for low levels of R&D intensity to 0.33 for high levels of R&D intensity; (iii) the relationship between R&D expenditures and productivity growth is non-linear, and only after a certain critical mass of R&D is reached, the productivity growth is significantly positive; (iv) there are important intersectoral differences with respect to R&D investment and firm productivity high-tech sectors firms not only invest more in R&D, but also achieve more in terms of productivity gains connected with research activities.

Keywords: R&D investment; firm productivity; generalised propensity score (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C21 D24 F23 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2012-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Journal Article: R&D and non-linear productivity growth (2016)
Working Paper: R&D and Non-Linear Productivity Growth of Heterogeneous Firms (2012)
Working Paper: R&D and Non-linear Productivity Growth of Heterogeneous Firms (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201206

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