Open AccessA Note on the Drivers of R&D Intensity
Author(s) -
Azèle Mathieu,
Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
research in world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1923-399X
pISSN - 1923-3981
DOI - 10.5430/rwe.v1n1p56
Subject(s) - economics , r&d intensity , panel data , econometric model , econometric analysis , aggregate (composite) , economic geography , agricultural economics , econometrics , management , materials science , composite material
This research note evaluates the extent to which national industrial structure affects country rankings based on aggregate R&D intensity. The econometric analysis performed on a cross-country cross-industry panel dataset (21 industrial sectors, 18 countries, and 5 years) suggests that accounting for industrial structure substantially affects the traditional country rankings. Sweden, the USA, France and Japan have an ‘above-than-average’ R&D intensity in most industries, whereas the high level of aggregate R&D intensity in South Korea and Finland, for instance, is essentially due to the importance of R&D-intensive industries in their economy (telecom and computers), and not to a macroeconomic environment particularly favourable to R&D. The US, Japanese and Swedish ‘exceptions’ might result from higher ‘expected’ returns to R&D in these countries.