Persistent heterogeneity of R&D intensities within sectors: Evidence and policy implications

Alex Coad ()

No 2017-04, JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: Do firms in the same sector converge towards the same R&D intensities? Previous research has often assumed this to be true. A closer examination, using microdata from the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard for the years 2000-2015, shows a large amount of heterogeneity in R&D intensities among firms in the same sector, and that this heterogeneity persists over time. Statistical tests of convergence show that the variation in R&D intensities does not decrease over time (i.e. no ?-convergence), although firms with an R&D intensity below the industry average do seem to catch up with the leaders (i.e. evidence of ?-convergence). Overall, firms in the same industry do not converge to a common R&D intensity. Policy implications are discussed.

Keywords: R&D investment; R&D intensity; convergence; benchmarking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L2 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-ino and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Persistent heterogeneity of R&D intensities within sectors: Evidence and policy implications (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201704

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