IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ema/worpap/2025-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

R&D Tax Credits across the EU: Nonsense or Common Sense? A Dynamic Panel Data Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence Jacquet
  • Stéphane ROBIN

    (CY Cergy Paris Université, THEMA)

Abstract

We re-examine the R&D - innovation - productivity nexus in 8 EU countries in the context of a possible EU-wide "super deduction" on R&D expenditures, using panels of industries with a long time dimension. We introduce dynamics in the innovation production function and extended production function models, taking the availability/unavailability of R&D tax credits (R&DTC) into account. Our benchmark estimates, obtained with panel ARDL models, yield positive longrun elasticities of innovation and productivity with respect to R&D intensity. R&D conducted under an R&DTC either reinforces an already-existing positive elasticity or makes it significantly positive if it was not before. Disentangling the respective effects of ’pure’ business R&D and of government-supported R&D reveals a wider diversity of situations, however. The effect of R&DTC is less often significant, sometimes superseded by other forms of public support to R&D. The main policy implication of these results is that a harmonized "super-deduction" on R&D at the EU level may be slightly premature. Complementary analyses suggest that targeting specific industries may make such a policy more effective and accurate.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence Jacquet & Stéphane ROBIN, 2025. "R&D Tax Credits across the EU: Nonsense or Common Sense? A Dynamic Panel Data Approach," THEMA Working Papers 2025-09, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    • Handle: RePEc:ema:worpap:2025-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://thema.u-cergy.fr/IMG/pdf/2025-09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen & Heidi Williams, 2019. "A toolkit of policies to promote innovation," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    2. Richard Blundell & Stephen Bond, 2000. "GMM Estimation with persistent panel data: an application to production functions," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 321-340.
    3. Renaud Bourlès & Gilbert Cette & Jimmy Lopez & Jacques Mairesse & Giuseppe Nicoletti, 2013. "Do Product Market Regulations In Upstream Sectors Curb Productivity Growth? Panel Data Evidence For OECD Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1750-1768, December.
    4. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    5. Semykina, Anastasia & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2010. "Estimating panel data models in the presence of endogeneity and selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 375-380, August.
    6. Cristiano Antonelli, 2020. "Knowledge exhaustibility public support to business R&D and the additionality constraint," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 649-663, June.
    7. Ben Broadbent & Federico Di Pace & Thomas Drechsel & Richard Harrison & Silvana Tenreyro, 2024. "The Brexit Vote, Productivity Growth, and Macroeconomic Adjustments in the U.K," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2104-2134.
    8. Jacques Mairesse & Pierre Mohnen, 2002. "Accounting for Innovation and Measuring Innovativeness: An Illustrative Framework and an Application," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 226-230, May.
    9. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Issues in Assessing the Contribution of Research and Development to Productivity Growth," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 17-45, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Renato Faccini & Edoardo Palombo, 2021. "News Uncertainty in Brexit United Kingdom," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 149-164, June.
    11. Amable, Bruno & Ledezma, Ivan & Robin, Stéphane, 2016. "Product market regulation, innovation, and productivity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 2087-2104.
    12. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    13. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2007. "A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 265-312.
    14. Bruno Amable & Ivan Ledezma & Stéphane Robin, 2016. "Product market regulation, innovation, and productivity," Post-Print hal-03691909, HAL.
    15. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    16. Ben Westmore, 2013. "R&D, Patenting and Growth: The Role of Public Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1047, OECD Publishing.
    17. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    18. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    19. Amat Adarov & Robert Stehrer, 2019. "Tangible and Intangible Assets in the Growth Performance of the EU, Japan and the US," wiiw Research Reports 442, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2011. "Econometrics For Grumblers: A New Look At The Literature On Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 109-155, February.
    2. Vogel, Johanna, 2013. "Regional Convergence in Europe: A Dynamic Heterogeneous Panel Approach," MPRA Paper 51794, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Goya, Daniel, 2020. "The exchange rate and export variety: A cross-country analysis with long panel estimators," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 649-665.
    4. Ejike Udeogu & Shampa Roy-Mukherjee & Uzochukwu Amakom, 2021. "Does Increasing Product Complexity and Diversity Cause Economic Growth in the Long-Run? A GMM Panel VAR Evidence," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, August.
    5. Yongfu Huang, 2011. "Private investment and financial development in a globalized world," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 43-56, August.
    6. Charles Shaaba Saba & Nicholas Ngepah, 2022. "ICT Diffusion, Industrialisation and Economic Growth Nexus: an International Cross-country Analysis," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(3), pages 2030-2069, September.
    7. Shreya Pal, 2024. "The International Capital Flows and Domestic Savings–domestic Investment Nexus: A Comparative Evidence Between Heterogeneous Developing Regions," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 13(2), pages 169-212, December.
    8. Benos, Nikos & Karagiannis, Stelios, 2013. "Do Cross-Section Dependence and Parameter Heterogeneity Matter? Evidence on Human Capital and Productivity in Greece," MPRA Paper 53326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    10. Peñasco, Cristina & del Río, Pablo & Romero-Jordán, Desiderio, 2017. "Gas and electricity demand in Spanish manufacturing industries: An analysis using homogeneous and heterogeneous estimators," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 45-60.
    11. Caravaggio, Nicola, 2020. "A global empirical re-assessment of the Environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    12. George E. Halkos & Michael L. Polemis, 2017. "Does Financial Development Affect Environmental Degradation? Evidence from the OECD Countries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1162-1180, December.
    13. Gazi Hassan & Arusha Cooray & Mark Holmes, 2017. "The effect of female and male health on economic growth: cross-country evidence within a production function framework," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 659-689, March.
    14. Javier Coto-Martinez & Juan C. Reboredo, 2014. "The Relative Price of Non-traded Goods under Imperfect Competition," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(1), pages 24-40, February.
    15. Olaoye, Olumide O. & Eluwole, Oluwatosin O. & Ayesha, Aziz & Afolabi, Olugbenga O., 2020. "Government spending and economic growth in ECOWAS: An asymmetric analysis," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    16. Charalampos Agiropoulos & Michael L. Polemis & Michael Siopsis & Sotiris Karkalakos, 2022. "Revisiting the finance‐growth nexus: A socioeconomic approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 2762-2783, July.
    17. Markus Eberhardt & Christian Helmers & Hubert Strauss, 2013. "Do Spillovers Matter When Estimating Private Returns to R&D?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 436-448, May.
    18. João Gabriel Pio & Eduardo Gonçalves & Claúdio R. F. Vasconcelos, 2021. "Technology Spillovers Through Exports: Empirical Evidence for the Chinese Case," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 423-443, September.
    19. Andreas Dietrich, 2012. "Does growth cause structural change, or is it the other way around? A dynamic panel data analysis for seven OECD countries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 915-944, December.
    20. Dimelis, Sophia P. & Papaioannou, Sotiris K., 2011. "ICT growth effects at the industry level: A comparison between the US and the EU," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 37-50, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ema:worpap:2025-09. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Stefania Marcassa The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Stefania Marcassa to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/themafr.html .

    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.