Abstract
Our aim is to investigate the relationship between a firm's R&D expenditures and its productivity, looking at sectoral peculiarities. We use a unique longitudinal database consisting of 1809 US and European manufacturing and service firms over the period 1990-2008. Our main findings can be summarised as follows. Consistently with previous literature, the knowledge stock has a significant positive impact on a firm's productivity. More interestingly, the coefficient turns out to be significantly larger in the R&D-user services and high-tech manufacturing sectors than in the non-high-tech manufacturing sectors. Contrary to the 'latecomer advantage' approach, these outcomes suggest that firms in high-tech sectors are still ahead in terms of impact on productivity of R&D investments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 204-222 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Economics of Innovation and New Technology |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 8 Jul 2014 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- R&D
- productivity
- knowledge stock
- panel data
