Productivity Growth and R&D Expenditure in Taiwan's Manufacturing Firms / Jiann-Chyuan Wang, Kuen-Hung Tsai.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wang, Jiann-Chyuan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Tsai, Kuen-Hung.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9724.

NBER working paper series no. w9724

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2003.

Summary:

This study sets out to estimate the impact of R&D on productivity within the private sector, with further analysis of the different impacts of R&D in high-tech and conventional firms. The study also aims to estimate the rates of return on R&D investment and total factor productivity at firm level. Based on a sample of 136 large manufacturing firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange over the period 1994-2000, our findings suggest that Taiwan's R&D investment had a significant impact on firm productivity growth, with output elasticity standing at around 0.18. When the sample is divided into high-tech and conventional firms, the R&D output elasticity in high-tech firms is significantly greater than that of conventional firms. In addition, the average rate of return in high-tech firms is much larger than that estimated in other industries. Our empirical findings further show that although there was a dramatic decline in TFP in 1998 for all selected industries, this nevertheless started to climb again in 1999.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2003.