 Bounding the Effects of R&D: An Investigation Using Matched Establishment-Firm DataNo 5544, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc Abstract: Studies of firm-level data have shown that a firm's R&D and the R&D of other firms increase conventional factor productivity. We investigate these phenomena further by examining the relationship between plant-level productivity and firm-level R&D. We find that (1) the productivity-enhancing effects of parent firm R&D are diminished by geographic distance from the research lab and `technological' distance between the product-field focus of the R&D and the plants; (2) productivity appears to depend on the intensity of parent firm R&D (R&D per plant), not on the total amount; and (3) spillovers of research effects from technologically related firms are significant but also depend on R&D intensity rather than total industry R&D. These results suggest that, despite the externalities created by spillovers of R&D, the `dilution' of R&D across multiple target plants reduces its potency sufficiently that spillovers may not be a source of industry-wide or economy-wide increasing returns. Date: 1996-04 Published as in the Rand Journal of Economics vol.27,no.4, (winter,1996), pp.700-721. Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5544 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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