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The rate of return to investment in R&D infrastructure: an overview

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  • Chiara F. DEL BO

Abstract

The return to R&D investment and activities has been the object of a vast literature, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The aim of this overview is to present a selection of contributions to underscore the main shared findings and highlight open issues. First, a common methodological framework is distilled from the macro literature, examining the return to R&D in aggregate terms. Then, the evaluation in the context of specific projects, mainly in large research infrastructure, are examined, followed by the explicit consideration of externalities and spillover effects of research activities. A preliminary empirical analysis of European research infrastructures is also presented, based on a novel dataset, to highlight trends and suggest new avenues for the evaluation of the rate of return to investments in research infrastructures. Directions for future research are sketched in the concluding section.

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  • Chiara F. DEL BO, 2014. "The rate of return to investment in R&D infrastructure: an overview," Departmental Working Papers 2014-11, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    • Handle: RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2014-11
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Return to R&D; Endogenous growth; Cost Benefit Analysis; Spillovers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities

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