R & D in Israeli industry

This paper deals with several aspects of R & D activity in Israel's manufacturing industries on three levels — the economy, industrial branch and the firm. Relative to other industrial countries, Israel is characterized by a high share of R & D expenditure in GNP but a low level of industrial R & D. If we take registered patents as an indicator of R & D output no significant correlation is found between this measure and expenditure on R & D; this may point to a low level of success or to the nature of R & D being directed more to small improvements of existing products and processes than to new inventions. An inter-industry analysis shows that R & D expenditure is positively correlated with average firm size and capital per employee and negatively correlated with concentration ratio. A positive correlation was also found with respect to increase in sales and export per employee but not with the rate of growth of export. Although most R & D is performed by large companies there is no significant correlation between R & D expenditure and firm's size among firms engaged in R & D, nor between R & D expenditure and firm's profitability. Concerning the relationship between domestic R & D and imports of technology a tentative conclusion is that Israel does not derive sufficient benefit from the international stock of knowledge.     

West German science policy since the early 1960's: trends and objectives

The trends in West German science policy since the early 1960' are analyzed and compared to other industrially advanced countries. Government expenditures on research and development (R & D) are compared in their totality and also with regard to specific objectives such as defence, civil space, civil nuclear, general advancement of science, mining and manufacturing, agriculture, economic and social services.The trend of total government expenditure on R & D in West Germany iss characterized by a growth rate higher than in many other countries, such as the USA, the UK, France, Japan and the Netherlands. Also in each of the single objectives of government R & D, West German expenditure as a rule grew faster than in these countries. Among the different objectives, “general advancement of science” is given highest priority in West Germany, whereas the military sector is relatively small. In both trends and priorities, West Germany is more similar to Japan and the Netherlands than to the USA, the UK and France.The author discusses motives and intentions which may have affected these trends. He argues that West German science policy cannot be understood as a response to immediate economic problems, such as labour shortage or an alleged lag in technological progress in West German industry. In the early sixties West German science policy was still determined by efforts to catch up in certain technological fields from which West Germany had been excluded up to 1955 by allies' restrictions. In the late sixties, concern focussed on West Germany's long-term technological competitiveness in general.     

Application of ppbs to r&d planning

As R & D are the main sources of social and economic progress, decisions in the field of scientific research cannot be taken on the basis of scientific criteria alone. The goal and programme oriented planning process of PPBS facilitates the orientation of R & D planning along extra-scientific criteria and leads to a more efficient use of the means available.PPBS, however, neglects the problem of operationalisation of goals. As the ‘national goals’ are regarded as given and the operational goals leading to their realisation as easily deducible, the planning process starts on too low a level.The integration of research planning into the comprehensive mean-term planning of governmental goal achievement requires the inclusion of future R & D activities into the planning process. Only then can the priority of the individual R & D goals and their relationship with general political goals to whose fulfillment they contribute be assessed correctly.     

Is a higher rate of R&D tax credit a panacea for low levels of R&D in disadvantaged regions?

This paper studies the impact of R&D spending on output as well as forecasting the impact of a regionally enhanced R&D tax credit on the ‘user cost’ (or price) of R&D expenditure and subsequently the demand for R&D. The example we use of a ‘disadvantaged’ region is Northern Ireland (partly because it has the lowest levels of R&D spending in the UK, and partly because the necessary data is available for this region). We find that in the long run, R&D spending has a mostly positive impact on output across various manufacturing industries. In addition, plants with a zero R&D stock experience significant one-off negative productivity effects. As to the adjustment of R&D in response to changes in the ‘user cost’, our results suggest a rather slow adjustment over time, and a long-run own-price elasticity of around −1.4 for Northern Ireland. We also find that to have a major impact on R&D spending in the Province, the R&D tax credit would need to be increased substantially; this would be expensive in terms of the net exchequer cost.     

我国医药制造业出口贸易活动与研发资金投入关系研究——基于VAR模型

选取1998—2015年我国医药制造业相关数据,建立向量自回归模型(VAR模型)进行协整检验,并借助脉冲响应函数和方差分解进行分析,以探求医药制造业出口贸易活动与研发资金投入二者的相关关系。研究表明:我国医药制造业出口贸易活动对研发资金投入存在长期稳定的正向推动作用,出口贸易活动收益每增加1%,研发资金投入增加1.30%;且这种推动作用有一定的滞后性,滞后期为3年。政府相关部门和企业都应当正确认识这种正向推动作用及其滞后性,并通过大力开展出口贸易活动从而带动研发资金投入的增加,最终提高产业创新能力和竞争力。     

Information processing,evaluation, and utilization: The role of academic libraries in research and development (R & D) in Zambia

The study attempts to apply J.R. Bettman's consumer choice theory to the concept of information processing, evaluation and utilization within the present and future Zambian context. Central to this is the belief that information is a marketable commodity and is one that is critically essential in all activities relating to research and development (R & D) in Zambia. However, the author argues that unless there are discernible changes in the traditional attitudes and cultural values among Zambians, information processed and organized by academic libraries in Zambia will never be fully utilized even in research and development activities.     

The influence of Ministry of Defence funding on semiconductor research and development in the United Kingdom

This paper argues that the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence's (MoD) sponsorship of industrial semiconductor research and development (R&D) has, by its very nature, influenced the type of R&D performed, and the directions it has taken, to the extent of limiting its potential for subsequent commercial utilization. While much of the fault appears to lie with the semiconductor industry's response to MoD funding of its R&D, especially its over-reliance on such external support, the paper also suggests that the structure, modus operandi, and funding mechanisms of the MoD department concerned have significantly affected the industry's R&D activities. With these criticisms in mind, while at the same time noting the advantageous features of this department's activities, such as its relative autonomy, brief suggestions for ensuring more coherent and continuous state support for semiconductor R&D, including, for example, the use of innovation-oriented procurement policies, are offered.     

Do public subsidies stimulate private R&D spending?

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the empirical literature that evaluates the effects of public R&D support on private R&D investment. We apply a matching approach to analyze the effects of public R&D support in Spanish manufacturing firms. We examine whether or not the effects are different depending on the size of the firm and the technological level of the sectors in which the firms operate. We evaluate the effect of R&D subsidies on the subsidized firms, considering both the effect of subsidies on firms that would have performed R&D in the absence of public support and also the effect of inducement to undertake R&D activities. We also analyze the effect that concession of subsidies might have on firms which do not enjoy this type of support. The main conclusions indicate absence of “crowding-out”, either full or partial, between public and private spending and that some firms - mainly small and operating in low technology sectors - might not have engaged in R&D activities in the absence of subsidies.     

International comparisons of R&D effort: The case of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry

The Canadian federal government, anxious to stimulate innovation, announced recently a policy objective for the economy: the attainment of industrial research expenditures reaching 1.5 percent of the gross national product. The proposed substantial increase over the current level is rationalized by comparison with economy-wide research intensities (GERD/GNP) in other OECD countries.This paper questions the economic validity and policy relevance of international aggregate comparisons. It argues that inter-country comparisons should take place at individual industry levels where technologies are similar and proposes a methodology for formulating R&D spending targets of this kind. The procedure is to estimate a model of the determinants of R&D intensity with data from several “criterion countries” and employ the results to “predict” a specific industry's research intensity in another country.In this paper such a model is formulated for the pharmaceutical industry of seven OECD countries. Plausible parameter estimates are derived and used to “forecast” the research intensity of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry. It is found that given the predominance of foreign ownership, the nature of patent protection and the level of other relevant variables in Canada, the performance of this sector is much above the OECD-derived standard; this Canadian industry presumably does not require governmental attention to its R&D activities.     

The origin and direction of industrial R&D in India

This paper surveys the trends in industrial R&D in India over the last two decades. It shows that there has been a rapid rise in R&D expenditure and a shift in its composition towards in-house corporate R&D and away from R&D in government laboratories, which is explained by the laboratories' lack of market orientation and manufacturing experience. According to cross-section studies of corporate R&D, larger companies aim towards larger technological advances and take a longer view; but the overall composition of corporate R&D shows no discernible change. This apparent inconsistency is explained by the development of the technology market. Much R&D was triggered off by the need for import replacement arising from import controls till 1965 and later by the need for product diversification in the recession. But construction of new plants and mechanization for speeding up operations, activities where sustained R&D can yield large firms a steady flow of innovations, were unimportant or infrequent, and the demand for technology they gave rise to was largely met by imports.     

Innovations led expansion: the shipbuilding case

Throughout the period 1951–1972 the source of over two thirds of the world shipbuilding output has been four industrial countries, namely UK, W. Germany, Sweden and Japan, However, during the same period, the relative share of each of the above-mentioned countries in the world's output has changed. During the 1950's the relative share in the world shipbuilding output of the UK and Swedish industries fell, while that of W. Germany and Japan rose. The 1960's witnessed a further fall in the relative share of the UK and Sweden, a fall in the relative share of W. Germany and a sharper rise than during the earlier decade in the relative share of Japan.The dominant position of Japan vis-à-vis other leading shipbuilding countries has been due primarily to its price competitiveness. Japanese shipbuilding prices were lower than those of the UK by a margin that ranged from 7.5–20%. This article attempts to show that this price advantage is due neither to the lower cost of Japanese factors of production, nor to a greater degree of subsidization for the Japanese shipbuilding industry in comparison with those of the UK, W. Germany and Sweden. The theme of this article is that the competitive position enjoyed by the Japanese shipbuilding industry is accounted for by its greater innovativeness compared with the industries in other leading shipbuilding countries. A series of process innovations introduced in Japan has reduced the building cost as well as the operating cost of Japanese built vessels. These process innovations have affected the various components of shipbuilding technology, such as the general engineering aspects, propulsion system, size and manning. This article shows that the greater innovativeness of the Japanese shipbuilding industry is due to several factors: the favourable effect on R & D expenditure of the average size of firms, good management of R & D efforts, and the involvement of management in the production technology side of the business.     

Government policies towards industrial innovation: a review

Existing economic theories show that continuing innovation, diffusion, and technical and managerial improvement are necessary for economic growth and international competitiveness in the industrially advanced countries. But knowledge of why, where and how governments should intervene in the processes of industrial innovations stems more from trial and error than from systematic empirical information of the nature and extent of the hindrances to economically and socially desirable innovations, and of the effectiveness of alternative government policies to remove them. Nonetheless, past empirical studies do offer some clues.Differences amongst industrial sectors. The sources of new technology vary widely amongst inustrial sectors: in the costs of innovation, in the relative importance of outside suppliers of equipment and materials, of large and small firms, and of full-time R & D departments as compared to part-time innovative activities (sect. 7, 8). Similarly, the conditions for successful innovation vary amongst sectors (sect.6). Thus, government policies designed to influence innovation are likely to act with different intensities in different industries.The management of innovation. Nonetheless, there are some features common to innovation in different industries. Considerable costs beyond R & D are often necessary before the innovations reach commercial use (sect.4). And the following managerial characteristics are in general associated with successful innovation: a deliberate policy of seeking innovations; close and careful attention to customer requirements; good personal communications both within the firm and with outside sources of relevant knowledge; a style of management that is ‘organic’ and ‘participatory’ rather than ‘hierarchical’ and ‘authoritarian’; strong project leadership; and a strong engineering capability (sect. 6).R & D managers are still unable to predict the outcome of R & D projects to a useful degree of accuracy and, in the literature on methods of project selection, very little attention is paid to market uncertainties. Furthermore, a greater use of conventional investment appraisal criteria in deciding on R & D projects may re-inforce the already observed tendency in industry towards short-term, low-risk projects, to the neglect of longer-term, high-risk projects (sect. 5).Governments should therefore examine whether the benefits of policies towards education and management advisory services for innovation might outweigh their costs. They may also have a significant role to play in financing longer-term research that is basic to the development of industrial technology (subsect. 12.5).The nature of market and production demands. The direction of industrial innovation is often very sensitive to market and production demands (sect. 3). This fact, together with the high degree of market uncertainty facing innovating firms (sect. 5), suggest that governments can potentially influence both the pace and the direction of industrial innovation through their influence on the scale of industrial, consumer and public service demands. However, this potential influence will become real only if users of innovations are able to specify the innovations that they need, or to evaluate those that they get. This is generally the case for industrial demand, but not in consumer and public service markets, where fashion, insensitivity to users' needs and lack of technical competence often prevail. Government-funded technological institutes and laboratories are ideally placed to provide such technical competence (sub-sect. 12.3).Economic incentives and rewards for innovation. A whole range of economic factors are said to influence the resources, the incentives and the rewards for innovation: for example, the degree of monopoly or the degree of competition, the patent system, the level of profits, the level of taxation, and the level of demand. The empirical evidence on the effects of most of these factors on industrial innovation is either inconclusive or non-existent. However, in the USA a close relationship has been observed between growth of industry sales and growth of industry-financed R & D activities (sect. 10). The rate of growth of demand is also one of the key factors influencing the rate of diffusion of innovations amongst their potential population of users (sects. 11, 12.2).The government-financed scientific and technological infrastructure. Scientific and technological knowledge from outside of innovating firms is often crucial to the completion of successful innovations, and three UK studies show that a significant proportion of this outside knowledge comes from government-financed technological institutes and laboratories, and from the universities (sect. 3). If the same is true in other countries, it should be an essential feature of any government policy towards industrial innovation to know how effectively government-funded laboratories and universities provide supportive knowledge to industry, and how government laboratories should be organised and financed (subsect. 12.4).Direct government-financing of innovative activities in industry. Governments specifically finance R & D activities in industrial firms, although these expenditures are less than those for general industrial development (sect. 13). These R & D activities in industry are relatively more important in France and UK, than in F.R. Germany and the Netherlands.In the four countries, more than 70% of all civilian government R & D activities related to industry are spent on aircraft, space, nuclear energy and electronics (subsect. 14.4). In all these high technologies, governments attempted in the 1960's to implement ‘policies for innovation’, involving government procurement, industrial mergers and attempts at European co-operation, in addition to the financing of R & D (subsect. 14.5). Government expenditures on civilian R & D related to other industrial sectors are very much smaller in all four countries (subsect 14.4).Where should governments intervene? A, number of attempts have been made to develop a formal framework of criteria to assist governments in deciding where they should intervene in industrial innovation. They all run into the following difficulties: dealing with multiple policy objectives; assessing national costs and benefits; comparing with alternative policies, choosing appropriate policy instruments (sect. 17).How should governments intervene? Very little information is available on the effectiveness of various policy instruments that have been used by governments in order to promote innovation in industry. Although it is often possible to measure the inputs into such policies, the measurement of their outputs (or results) is more difficult. Nonetheless, detailed studies would enable some such measurements to be made, and internationally comparable studies would increase the range of experiences and the number of cases that could be examined (sect. 18).Why should governments intervene? A full appreciation of the nature and scale of hindrances to industrial innovation, on which governments should act to remove, requires direct information on what innovations are (or are not) being introduced by industry, and why they are (or are not) being inyroduced. This information can best be obtained from analyses of the behaviour of industrial firms. They would differ from most existing innovation studies that concentrate on asking how firms must behave in order to make successful innovation, by asking what innovations are attempted, and why firms are stimulated to attempt them (sect. 19).     

Strategic interactions in public R&D across European countries: A spatial econometric analysis

The paper adds to the existing literature on the determinants of government spending in Research and Development (R&D) by considering the role of strategic interactions among countries as one of the possible competing explanations, within a spatial econometric framework. We account for several factors affecting national levels of public R&D spending, including (i) the international context – i.e. Lisbon strategy; (ii) country characteristics – level of private R&D, GDP, trade openness and the National System of Innovation; (iii) countries’ similarities in relation to (a) trade and economic size and (b) sectoral specialization. The analysis is carried out on 14 European countries. First, we find that factors traditionally affecting the level of public R&D expenditure, such as the scale of the national economy, trade openness, sectoral specialization and private R&D, significantly influence the level of public R&D in European countries between 1994 and 2006. Interestingly, the introduction of the Lisbon strategy does not seem to have affected changes in the levels of public R&D spending. Second, by using different weight matrices, we confirm the existence of strategic interactions in relation to R&D spending among European countries with similar economic, international trade and sectoral structure characteristics, though not geographically close.     

Defense-related R&D as a model for “Grand Challenges” technology policies

National defense represents a significant share of most OECD governments’ R&D budgets and an even higher share of their mission-oriented R&D spending. This public R&D investment has focused on research and innovation supporting defense missions, and in many cases the military services of these governments have purchased weapons systems incorporating the resulting technologies. Defense-related R&D investment has influenced innovation in the broader civilian economy of several OECD nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The scope and nature of this influence remains uncertain and subject to considerable debate. Nonetheless, policymakers throughout the industrialized economies have expressed interest in “applying the lessons” of defense-related and other mission-oriented R&D programs to such challenges as climate change. This paper examines the characteristics of defense-related mission R&D programs in the industrial economies, with particular attention to the subset of nations for which reliable longitudinal data on defense R&D spending are available. I highlight the characteristics that distinguish mission-oriented R&D in this field from mission-oriented R&D in other sectors and to point out some significant differences among OECD economies in the structure of their defense-related R&D programs. The discussion also emphasizes the ways in which the unique structure of defense-related R&D limit its utility as a model for mission-oriented R&D programs aimed at other goals.     

Evaluating R&D investment efficiency in China's high-tech industry

Research and development (R&D) investment activity plays a crucial role in developing high-tech industries. In recent decades, China has made sustained investments in its domestic high-tech industries, with the goal of increasing their productivity. This paper investigates the effect of this investment on relative R&D efficiency across China's high-tech sectors. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to generate quantitative indices for sector comparisons. The analysis of this study indicates that overall R&D investment efficiency did not increase from 1998 to 2009, despite R&D expenditure increasing by 2188%. Over the same period, most sectors suffered from decreasing returns to scale (DRS), presumably also reflecting the inefficient R&D investment. Most of the sectors showed significant fluctuation on R&D investment efficiency. This research result indicates that the problem of China's high-tech industry may be from the inefficiency of its technology commercialization processes, and therefore represents a critical parameter for policy makers and managers.     

Complementarities of innovation activities: An empirical analysis of the German manufacturing sector

Innovation strategies in manufacturing often involve internal R&D activities as well as external partnerships. Thereby it is not clear if internal and external activities are complements or substitutes. This paper tests for complementarity of different innovation activities, i.e. internal R&D, R&D contracting, and R&D cooperation. The empirical analysis of cross-sectional firm level data of the German manufacturing sector comprises both indirect and direct complementarity tests; it is based on data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 3). The results provide evidence for significant complementarities between internal R&D and R&D cooperation, but cast doubt on the complementarity of internal and contracted R&D, since a productivity effect on firms’ patenting probability or sales with new products cannot be found.     

Overseas R&D, knowledge sourcing, and patenting: an empirical study of Japanese R&D investment in the US

This paper purports to study the contribution of R&D at home and abroad to the firm’s inventive activity, using a sample of 137 Japanese multinationals. The empirical analysis relates the number of inventions in Japan and that in the US, as measured by the number of patents issued by the USPTO, to the parent’s R&D, the US subsidiaries’ R&D, the presence of R&D in Europe, the firm’s experience in the US, entry mode, and industry dummies. In addition, to study the subsidiary’s role in sourcing local technological knowledge, we construct indices of local technological strength of the state in which the subsidiary is located. The results, most importantly, indicate that these indices positively contribute to inventions at home and in the US among Type R firms, whose R&D subsidiaries mainly aim to research, suggesting that knowledge sourcing is an important function of these subsidiaries and locational choice is important for this purpose. These results do not hold among Type S firms, whose R&D subsidiaries mainly aim to support local manufacturing and sales activities.     

Effects of foreign acquisitions on R&D activity: Evidence from firm-level data for France

This paper investigates the causal effect of foreign acquisitions on the research and development (R&D) activities of domestic target firms over the period 1994–2004. Using accounting data on French innovative manufacturing firms, we implement appropriate difference-in-difference estimation techniques associated with a matching propensity score procedure. We find that the acquisitions of French firms by foreign companies boost R&D spending. There is a simultaneous rise in the external and in-house R&D expenditures of French acquired firms. R&D is more contracted out to local research providers, in particular to local public laboratories and universities. The increase in internal R&D spending benefits to development, but also basic and applied research. Finally, the growth of the R&D budget is not only financed by internal resources but also receives financing from external partners, especially parent companies. Thus, our results call into question the idea that foreign takeovers hamper the R&D development of target firms and are detrimental to the national innovation system of the host country. First, acquisitions appear to bring efficiency gains enough to counterbalance the various costs of integration and market power effects, pushing firms to invest more in R&D. Acquisitions do not seem to incite managers to take shorter term and more financial driven decisions at the expense of R&D. Second, when motivated by technology sourcing and overseas R&D development, acquisitions might be used to access the specific know-how of target firms and to tap into the knowledge of the national innovation system. Then, purchaser firms could be more likely to develop the innovative capability of target firms and to strengthen their linkages with local partners than to reduce them and relocate R&D abroad.     

Estimating the causal effect of R&D subsidies in a pan-European program

We investigate the effect of Europe's largest multilateral subsidy program for R&D-performing small and medium-sized enterprises. The program applied a specific budget allocation rule, referred to as Virtual Common Pot (VCP), which is designed to avoid cross-subsidization between participating countries. This rule creates exogenous variation in funding status and allows us to identify the causal effect of public R&D grants on firm growth. In addition, we compare the program's effect under the VCP rule with the standard situation of a Real Common Pot (RCP), in which program authorities allocate a single budget according to uniform project evaluation criteria. Our estimates suggest that R&D grants had no average effect on job creation and sales growth, but treatment effects were heterogeneous and positive for high-quality projects. Under an RCP the program would have created 53% more jobs and 48% higher sales.