The productivity impact of R&D investment: are high-tech sectors still ahead?

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...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economics of innovation and new technology 2015-04, Vol.24 (3), p.204-222
Main Authors: Ortega-Argilés, Raquel, Piva, Mariacristina, Vivarelli, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Economic models
High tech industries
Impact analysis
knowledge stock
Manufacturing
panel data
Productivity
R&D
Research & development
Research & development expenditures
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:1043-8599
1476-8364
DOI:10.1080/10438599.2014.918440