TY - JOUR
T1 - Persistent heterogeneity of R&D intensities within sectors
T2 - Evidence and policy implications
AU - Coad, Alex
N1 - Funding Information:
I am grateful to Sara Amoroso, Flavio Calvino, Elena Cefis, Matthias Deschryvere, Giovanni Dosi, Andrea Filippetti, Nicola Grassano, Daniel Halvarsson, Heli Koski, Nanditha Mathew, Pietro Moncada-Patern?-Castello, Stephen Roper, Martin Srholec, Federico Tamagni, Alex Tuebke, Jan van den Biesen (Philips), Daniel Vertesy, Antonio Vezzani, and participants at the 6th IRIMA workshop (JRC-IPTS, European Commission, Brussels, Dec 2015), EMAEE 2017 in Strasbourg, and CONCORDi 2017 in Seville, as well as two anonymous reviewers and the editor, Stefan Kuhlmann, for helpful comments. The usual caveat applies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/2
Y1 - 2019/2
N2 - Do firms in the same sector converge towards the same R&D intensities? Previous research has often assumed this to be true. A closer examination, using microdata from the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard for the years 2000–2015, shows considerable heterogeneity in R&D intensities among firms in the same sector, and that this heterogeneity persists over time. Statistical tests of convergence show that the variation in R&D intensities does not decrease over time (i.e. no σ-convergence), although firms with an R&D intensity below the industry average do seem to catch up with the leaders (i.e. evidence of β-convergence). Overall, firms in the same industry do not converge to a common R&D intensity. Policy implications are discussed.
AB - Do firms in the same sector converge towards the same R&D intensities? Previous research has often assumed this to be true. A closer examination, using microdata from the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard for the years 2000–2015, shows considerable heterogeneity in R&D intensities among firms in the same sector, and that this heterogeneity persists over time. Statistical tests of convergence show that the variation in R&D intensities does not decrease over time (i.e. no σ-convergence), although firms with an R&D intensity below the industry average do seem to catch up with the leaders (i.e. evidence of β-convergence). Overall, firms in the same industry do not converge to a common R&D intensity. Policy implications are discussed.
KW - Benchmarking
KW - Convergence
KW - Evolutionary theory
KW - Heterogeneity
KW - R&D intensity
KW - R&D investment
KW - Sectoral systems of innovation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051381668&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85051381668&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.respol.2018.07.018
DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2018.07.018
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85051381668
VL - 48
SP - 37
EP - 50
JO - Research Policy
JF - Research Policy
SN - 0048-7333
IS - 1
ER -