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R&D Activities (r&d + activity)
Selected AbstractsEffectiveness versus Efficiency: Growth-Accelerating Policies in a Model of Growth without Scale EffectsGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Bettina Büttner Endogenous growth; scale effects; welfare Abstract. Recent R&D growth models without strong scale effects imply that long-run growth rates depend only on parameters that are usually taken to be exogenous. However, integrating human capital accumulation into models of this type, Arnold (2002) demonstrates that subsidizing education accelerates growth. The present paper addresses welfare issues in Arnold's model. The main theoretical finding of the paper is that a system of subsidies that implements the optimal balanced growth path as a decentralized equilibrium includes zero subsidies to education, while R&D activity should be either subsidized or taxed. To shed further light on the latter result, the model is calibrated and it turns out that along the balanced growth path, the decentralized economy underinvests in R&D, i.e. R&D activities should be subsidized. [source] Financial factors in R&D budget setting: the impact of interfunctional market coordination, strategic alliances, and the nature of competitionACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 2 2004Alan S. Dunk Abstract Increasingly demanding markets, changes in technology and greater international competition have made the effective management of product R&D together with its associated costs essential. The magnitude of R&D costs are of concern to many companies, potentially inhibiting organizations from investing in new product development. Although rising costs of R&D and the growing dependence of companies on R&D for product leadership increase the need to plan and evaluate R&D activities more effectively, difficulties have been experienced in applying budgetary control systems to R&D. Despite such concerns, the published literature indicates that an emphasis on financial factors in setting the size of R&D budgets is becoming a competitive necessity. A review of the published literature suggests that interfunctional market coordination, the relative use of strategic alliances and the nature of competition in terms of product cost versus product innovation are potentially instrumental in influencing the degree of emphasis on financial factors in R&D budget setting. The results of the present study indicate that these three organizational and environmental variables result in an emphasis on financial factors in setting the size of R&D budgets. Implications drawn from the findings are discussed. [source] Research And Development Productivity And Spillovers: Empirical Evidence At The Firm LevelJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 4 2005Robert Wieser Abstract., A variety of methods have been used to investigate the empirical relationship between research and development (R&D) spending and the productivity of firms. The most widely employed frameworks are the production function and the associated productivity framework. In these settings, productivity growth is related to expenditures on R&D, and an attempt is made to estimate statistically the part of productivity growth that can be attributed to R&D activities. This article surveys the expansive body of empirical literature on this subject and finds a large and significant impact of R&D on firm performance on average. However, the estimated returns vary considerably between the different studies due to differences across data samples and econometric models, as well as methodological and conceptual issues. A meta-analysis on the studies surveyed reveals that the estimated rates of return do not significantly differ between countries, whereas the estimated elasticities do. Furthermore, the estimated elasticities are significantly higher in the 1980s and consistently higher in the 1990s compared with the 1970s. Hence, contrary to a widely held belief, we find no convincing evidence of an exhaustion of R&D opportunities in the last two decades. [source] The Global Governance of Communicable Diseases: The Case for Vaccine R&DLAW & POLICY, Issue 1 2005DANIELE ARCHIBUGI Fighting communicable diseases such HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB, and malaria has become a global endeavor, with international health authorities urging the development of effective vaccines for the eradication of these global pandemics. Yet, despite the acknowledged urgency, and given the feasibility of effective vaccine development, public and private research efforts have failed to address a response adequate to the magnitude of the crisis. Members of the academic community suggest bridging this gap by devising research pull mechanisms capable of stimulating private investments, confident that competition-based market devices are more effective than public intervention in shaping scientific breakthroughs. With reference to the economics of innovation, the paper argues that, whilst such an approach would lead to a socially suboptimal production of knowledge, direct public intervention in vaccine R&D activities would represent a far more socially desirable policy option. In recognition of the current financial and political fatigue affecting the international community towards communicable disease control, the paper resorts to the theories of global public goods (GPGs) to provide governments, both in the North and in the South, with a powerful rationale for committing to a cooperative approach for vaccine R&D. The paper encourages the creation of a Global Health Research Fund to manage such exercise and proposes enshrining countries' commitments into an International Health Treaty. The paper ends by providing a number of policy recommendations. [source] INVENTOR PRODUCTIVITY AND FIRM SIZE: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA ON INVENTORSPACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2009Jinyoung Kim It has long been recognized that worker wages and productivity are higher in large firms. Moreover, economists have been interested in the efficiency of large firms in R&D enterprises. This paper uses inventor panel data to examine the relationship between inventor productivity and firm size in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. In both industries, we find that inventors' productivity increases with firm size even after controlling for inventors' experience, education and other firm characteristics. We find evidence in the pharmaceutical industry that this is partly accounted for by differences in the way in which large and small firms organize R&D activities. [source] R&D activities of silicon-based thin-film solar cells in ChinaPHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI (A) APPLICATIONS AND MATERIALS SCIENCE, Issue 4 2006Yuwen Zhao Abstract The status and progress of R&D activities of silicon-based thin-film solar cells in China are described briefly in this paper, including amorphous Si solar cells and microcrystalline Si film solar cells based on PECVD technology and polycrystalline film solar cells based on RTCVD technology. Especially, the microcrystalline thin-film solar cells and the tandem solar cells of amorphous Si with microcrystalline Si have made great progress. The polycrystalline film solar cells have made remarkable achievements as well. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Determinants and archetype users of open innovationR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2009Marcus Matthias Keupp Extant research on open innovation (OI) offers no systematic insight of how and why firms differ regarding the extent to which they conduct OI activities. Whereas past theoretical contributions have focused on explaining the externalisation of R&D activities as a result of firm-external factors, we focus on explaining this externalisation as a result of firm-internal weaknesses, specifically, impediments to innovation. Using the exploration,exploitation dichotomy as our theoretical framework, we develop hypotheses on how impediments to innovation influence the breadth and depth of OI. We then test these hypotheses by using an exceptionally large and detailed data set to estimate population-averaged panel models. Our results provide support for most of the hypothesised relationships. Further, they allow to identify four ,archetypes' of firms that differ significantly regarding the breadth and depth of OI and the importance of impediments. Finally, we discuss the significance of these findings for both academics and managers. [source] Network positioning and R&D activity: a study of Italian groupsR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2003Igor Filatotchev Traditionally, R&D studies focus on organisational characteristics and internal context factor effects on a firm's R&D activities. This paper extends previous research by analysing firm,level R&D expenditures in the wider context of inter,organisational networks. Using sample of 2002 manufacturing firms in Italy, it provides evidence that R&D intensity is linked to a firm's positioning within an industrial group's hierarchy. Further tests on the antecedents of R&D expenditures are carried out in relation to the effects of firm characteristics and industry factors. Important findings include a significant and positive association between R&D intensity and the firm's size, performance, intangible assets and industry concentration. These findings suggest that, in addition to firm,level factors and its market environment, network resources and organisation may play an important role in driving the intensity of the firm's R&D expenditures. [source] R&D management through network mapping: using the Internet to identify strategic network actors in cooperative research networksR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001Tomas Hellström Most R&D management techniques to date have emphasized the immediate organizational context or the internal structure and process of the R&D project. Recently however attempts have been made at situating R&D management in a wider context of inter-organizational R&D activities. This paper presents the technique of R&D network mapping as a means of providing strategic intelligence to the R&D manager. The paper backgrounds this technique with a discussion of the general issue and significance of R&D networks. A methodology for R&D network mapping is then exemplified by outlining how a network database of cooperating projects and institutes in the telecom research sector was built by utilizing the World Wide Web. Finally a number of suggestions are made as to how and when network mapping should be applied in strategic R&D management. [source] OVERSEAS R&D ACTIVITIES AND HOME PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE FIRM-LEVEL DATA,THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008YASUYUKI TODO This paper investigates the impact of overseas subsidiaries' R&D activities on the productivity growth of parent firms using firm-level data for Japanese multinational enterprises. Based on survey responses, we classify each overseas subsidiary's R&D as either ,innovative R&D,' which we hypothesize is likely to lead to the acquisition of foreign knowledge, or ,adaptive R&D,' which is more likely to lead to adaptation to local conditions. We find that overseas innovative R&D raises the parent firm's productivity growth, while adaptive R&D has no such effect. In addition, overseas innovative R&D does not improve the rate of return on home R&D. [source] Research and Development, Regional Spillovers and the Location of Economic ActivitiesTHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 4 2004Alberto Franco Pozzolo I present an endogenous growth model that studies the effects of local inter-industry and intra-industry knowledge spillovers in R&D on the allocation of economic activities between two regions. The equilibrium is the result of a tension between a centripetal force, the cost of transporting goods from one region to the other, and a centrifugal force, the cost increase associated with life in a more crowded area. The presence of local knowledge spillovers, which determines the concentration of the R&D activities within one region, also introduces a further centripetal force that makes a symmetric allocation of the economic activities impossible. The concentration of R&D fosters the equilibrium rate of growth of the economy with respect to the case of no-integration, by increasing the positive effect of local knowledge spillovers. Contrary to the findings of the majority of models in the new economic geography literature, within this framework a reduction in transport costs may be associated with a more even geographical distribution of economic activities. [source] DEFECTING FROM R&D COOPERATIONAUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 3 2006GAMAL ATALLAH This paper introduces defection into the strategic R&D model. In defecting, a firm cheats by choosing its R&D expenditures to maximise its own profits, instead of maximising the joint profits of the cooperating firms. Two cooperative environments are considered: R&D cartelisation, where firms coordinate R&D activities; and RJV cartelisation, where firms coordinate R&D activities and share information. Under R&D cartelisation, defection entails an increase (decrease) in R&D and effective spillovers for low (high) spillovers; whereas under RJV cartelisation, defection always entails a decrease in R&D and effective spillovers. Under R&D cartelisation, consumer surplus and total welfare increase (decrease) with defection when spillovers are low (high). Whereas consumer surplus and welfare always decrease with defection under RJV cartelisation. Under R&D cartelisation, the incentives for defection first decrease then increase with spillovers; they also increase with the size of the market, but decline with production costs and R&D costs. Moreover, the incentives for defection are higher under RJV cartelisation. With low spillovers under RJV cartelisation, a firm prefers to be subject to defection by the other firm, to not cooperating at all. Punishment for defection is considered, under the form of abstaining from information sharing. [source] Effectiveness versus Efficiency: Growth-Accelerating Policies in a Model of Growth without Scale EffectsGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Bettina Büttner Endogenous growth; scale effects; welfare Abstract. Recent R&D growth models without strong scale effects imply that long-run growth rates depend only on parameters that are usually taken to be exogenous. However, integrating human capital accumulation into models of this type, Arnold (2002) demonstrates that subsidizing education accelerates growth. The present paper addresses welfare issues in Arnold's model. The main theoretical finding of the paper is that a system of subsidies that implements the optimal balanced growth path as a decentralized equilibrium includes zero subsidies to education, while R&D activity should be either subsidized or taxed. To shed further light on the latter result, the model is calibrated and it turns out that along the balanced growth path, the decentralized economy underinvests in R&D, i.e. R&D activities should be subsidized. [source] Technology and Cartel Stability under Vertical DifferentiationGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2000Luca Lambertini The interplay between R&D activity and cartel stability is investigated in a vertical differentiation framework with convex costs. The behaviour of firms' critical discount factors as the curvature of the cost function varies is investigated, considering either price- or quantity-setting behaviour. In order to stabilize collusion, firms are better off playing à la Cournot and supplying the non-cooperative qualities. There emerges a tradeoff between the reduction of the convexity of the cost function and the associated increase in marginal cost. The decision to carry out joint or independent ventures in research is also investigated, showing that such a decision is non-monotone in intertemporal discounting. Policy measures are then briefly discussed. [source] Process and product innovation: A differential game approach to product life cycleINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 2 2010Luca Lambertini C73; D43; D92; O31 We investigate the timing of adoption of product and process innovation using a differential game where firms may invest in both activities. We consider horizontal product innovation that reduces product substitutability, and process innovation that reduces marginal cost. First, we demonstrate that the incentive for cost-reducing investment is relatively higher than the incentive to increase product differentiation. Second, depending on initial conditions: (i) firms activate both types of investment from the very outset to the steady state; (ii) firms initially invest in only one R&D activity and then reach the steady state either carrying out only this activity or carrying out both; or (iii) firms do not invest at all in either type of innovation. Comparing R&D investments under Cournot and Bertrand behavior shows that quantity competition entails lower R&D incentives than price competition in both directions. [source] Exploratory factor analysis of the research and development culture index among qualified nursesJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 9 2005Bill Watson MSc Aims and objectives., This paper presents the exploratory factor analysis of a rating instrument for assessing the strength of organizational Research and Development (R&D) culture. Background., Despite nursing's limited research capacity, the discipline is capitalising upon opportunities to become involved in research and is making strong progress. Within the context of the debate on nursing research capacity, the R&D Culture Index was developed as a means of appraising R&D culture within health care organizations. Design., Factor analysis was carried out on data collected from 485 nursing staff. The method of extraction was Principal Components Analysis with oblique rotation. Methods., The Index was developed from the findings of qualitative research conducted with NHS staff. Eighteen items, encompassing the main themes from the data, were initially included in the Index. This pilot instrument was distributed to nursing staff within three different types of NHS Trust. Factor analysis resulted in rejection of two items and the analysis was repeated using the remaining 16 items. Results., Three latent factors were extracted accounting for 58·0% of the variance in the data. The factors were: R&D Support, describing the perceived support within the working environment for R&D activity; Personal R&D Skills and Aptitude, describing an individual's perception of their ability towards R&D activity; and Personal R&D Intention, describing an individual's willingness to engage in R&D activity. Each factor had good internal reliability, as did the overall index. Conclusion., The R&D Culture Index provides an efficient means of assessing the strength of an organization's R&D culture in a way that captures the role of the individual practitioner and the organizational environment. Relevance to practice., These findings suggest that the continuing promotion of R&D within health care organizations is dependent upon a multi-faceted approach that addresses the learning needs of the organization as well as those of the individual practitioners. [source] New directions in R&D: current and prospective challengesR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2008Jeremy Howells This paper investigates the paradox of research and development (R&D), that is being increasingly undervalued by firms and nations, and yet continues to grow and prosper in terms of overall size and reach. The analysis outlines key developments that are currently affecting the growth and development of R&D activity and highlights the issues and problems that R&D managers and policymakers may likely face over the next decade. [source] Network positioning and R&D activity: a study of Italian groupsR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2003Igor Filatotchev Traditionally, R&D studies focus on organisational characteristics and internal context factor effects on a firm's R&D activities. This paper extends previous research by analysing firm,level R&D expenditures in the wider context of inter,organisational networks. Using sample of 2002 manufacturing firms in Italy, it provides evidence that R&D intensity is linked to a firm's positioning within an industrial group's hierarchy. Further tests on the antecedents of R&D expenditures are carried out in relation to the effects of firm characteristics and industry factors. Important findings include a significant and positive association between R&D intensity and the firm's size, performance, intangible assets and industry concentration. These findings suggest that, in addition to firm,level factors and its market environment, network resources and organisation may play an important role in driving the intensity of the firm's R&D expenditures. [source] R&D INVESTMENT, CREDIT RATIONING AND SAMPLE SELECTIONBULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007Claudio A. Piga D45; G21; G32; E51 ABSTRACT We study whether R&D-intensive firms are liquidity constrained, by modelling their antecedent decision to apply for credit. This sample selection issue is relevant when studying a borrower,lender relationship, as the same factors can influence the decisions of both parties. We find firms with no or low R&D intensity to be less likely to request extra funds. When they do, we observe a higher probability of being denied credit. Such a relationship is not supported by evidence from the R&D-intensive firms. Thus, our findings lend support to the notion of credit constraints being severe only for a sub-sample of innovative firms. Furthermore, the results suggest that the way in which the R&D activity is organized may differentially affect a firm's probability of being credit constrained. [source] | ||||||||||