IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/scippl/v48y2021i5p712-726..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Boosting innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises through tax incentives: lessons from the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Firoz Ehsan

Abstract

Today’s technological frontrunners are tomorrow’s economic champions. In order to triumph in the global innovation race, nations go to great lengths to boost domestic innovation. An increasingly popular instrument of such government support is known as the ‘R&D tax incentive’. Scholars have particularly noted its greater incentive impact on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, correct use of this fiscal tool remains clouded by legal and economic complexities, often leading to misallocation of tax money. This study draws on the rich experience of the UK as a seasoned lawmaker in this field, to derive internationally transferrable policy lessons and principles that may be used in assessing and optimizing the potency of research and development tax incentives for SMEs. Following a theoretical analysis of the historical legal developments, annual government statistics, literature, and policy papers, this study argues that policymakers must take into account appropriateness, cost-efficiency, and accessibility in the design.

Suggested Citation

  • Firoz Ehsan, 2021. "Boosting innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises through tax incentives: lessons from the UK," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(5), pages 712-726.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:48:y:2021:i:5:p:712-726.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/scipol/scab034
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haixia Shi & Change Shen, 2022. "Tax Competition, Capital Flow, and the Innovation Efficiency of Industrial Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-12, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:48:y:2021:i:5:p:712-726.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/spp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.