Bounding the Effects of R&D: An Investigation Using Matched Establishment-Firm Data / James D. Adams, Adam B. Jaffe.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adams, James D.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Jaffe, Adam B.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w5544.

NBER working paper series no. w5544

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capital stock.

Chemical industry.

Plastics industry and trade.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Bounding the Effects of R&D

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1996.

Cambridge, Massachusetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1996.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

April 1996.