IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipt/iptwpa/jrc141091.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

R&D productivity: are ideas harder to find or does Europe suffer from a commercialization gap?

Author

Listed:

Abstract

It has been a long-standing debate whether Europe suffers from an innovation gap. Recent studies indicate a global decline in research and development (R&D) productivity across various sectors, raising concerns about the efficiency of innovation investments. New panel data from the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard allow examining long-term relationships between firm productivity and R&D. The results show that EU top R&D investors struggle more than their global counterparts to convert their R&D into new ideas and marketable products.

Suggested Citation

  • Czarnitzki Dirk & Confraria Hugo, 2025. "R&D productivity: are ideas harder to find or does Europe suffer from a commercialization gap?," JRC Research Reports JRC141091, Joint Research Centre.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc141091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC141091
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Hünermund, Paul & Moshgbar, Nima, 2020. "Public Procurement of Innovation: Evidence from a German Legislative Reform," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Charles I. Jones & John Van Reenen & Michael Webb, 2020. "Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(4), pages 1104-1144, April.
    3. Ian Goldin & Pantelis Koutroumpis & François Lafond & Julian Winkler, 2024. "Why Is Productivity Slowing Down?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 196-268, March.
    4. Czarnitzki Dirk & Confraria Hugo, 2025. "R&D productivity: are ideas harder to find or does Europe suffer from a commercialization gap?," JRC Research Reports JRC141091, Joint Research Centre.
    5. Kancs, d’Artis & Siliverstovs, Boriss, 2016. "R&D and non-linear productivity growth," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 634-646.
    6. Montresor, Sandro & Vezzani, Antonio, 2015. "The production function of top R&D investors: Accounting for size and sector heterogeneity with quantile estimations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 381-393.
    7. Aristovnik, Aleksander & Yang, Guo-liang & Song, Yao-yao & Ravšelj, Dejan, 2023. "Industrial performance of the top R&D enterprises in world-leading economies: A metafrontier approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    8. Moncada-Paternò-Castello, Pietro & Ciupagea, Constantin & Smith, Keith & Tübke, Alexander & Tubbs, Mike, 2010. "Does Europe perform too little corporate R&D? A comparison of EU and non-EU corporate R&D performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 523-536, May.
    9. Boeing, Philipp & Hünermund, Paul, 2020. "A global decline in research productivity? Evidence from China and Germany," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    10. Dosi, Giovanni & Llerena, Patrick & Labini, Mauro Sylos, 2006. "The relationships between science, technologies and their industrial exploitation: An illustration through the myths and realities of the so-called `European Paradox'," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1450-1464, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Czarnitzki Dirk & Confraria Hugo, 2025. "R&D productivity: are ideas harder to find or does Europe suffer from a commercialization gap?," JRC Research Reports JRC141091, Joint Research Centre.

    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. NINDL Elisabeth & NAPOLITANO Lorenzo & CONFRARIA Hugo & RENTOCCHINI Francesco & FAKO Peter & GAVIGAN James & TUEBKE Alexander, 2024. "The 2024 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard," JRC Research Reports JRC140129, Joint Research Centre.
    2. Naudé, Wim & Nagler, Paula, 2022. "The Ossified Economy: The Case of Germany, 1870-2020," IZA Discussion Papers 15607, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Ho, Jerry & Hoang, Vincent & Wilson, Clevo, 2020. "Government R&D Subsidies and International Competitiveness of Labor-managed Firms," MPRA Paper 106896, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Dec 2020.
    4. Fabio Pieri & Michela Vecchi & Francesco Venturini, 2017. "Modelling the joint impact of R and D and ICT on productivity: A frontier analysis approach," DEM Working Papers 2017/13, Department of Economics and Management.
    5. Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Sara Amoroso & Michele Cincera, 0. "Corporate R&D intensity decomposition: different data, different results?," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(4), pages 458-473.
    6. Hajkowicz, Stefan & Sanderson, Conrad & Karimi, Sarvnaz & Bratanova, Alexandra & Naughtin, Claire, 2023. "Artificial intelligence adoption in the physical sciences, natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences and the arts and humanities: A bibliometric analysis of research publications from 1960-2021," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Li, Qing & Hu, Dezhuang & Li, Tang, 2022. "The innovation of family firms in China: New evidence from the China employer-employee survey," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    8. d’Artis Kancs & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2020. "Employment effect of innovation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1373-1391, September.
    9. Naudé, Wim & Nagler, Paula, 2021. "The Rise and Fall of German Innovation," IZA Discussion Papers 14154, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Wang, Jieshu & Lobo, José, 2024. "Extensive growth of inventions: Evidence from U.S. patenting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    11. Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Nicola Grassano, 2022. "The EU vs US corporate R&D intensity gap: investigating key sectors and firms [A primer on innovation and growth]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(1), pages 19-38.
    12. Alex Coad, 2017. "Persistent heterogeneity of R&D intensities within sectors: Evidence and policy implications," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2017-04, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    13. Castellani, Davide & Piva, Mariacristina & Schubert, Torben & Vivarelli, Marco, 2019. "R&D and productivity in the US and the EU: Sectoral specificities and differences in the crisis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 279-291.
    14. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Ida Mele, 2022. "Impact of Covid-19 on research output by gender across countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 6811-6826, December.
    15. Hajkowicz, Stefan & Naughtin, Claire & Sanderson, Conrad & Schleiger, Emma & Karimi, Sarvnaz & Bratanova, Alexandra & Bednarz, Tomasz, 2022. "Artificial intelligence for science – adoption trends and future development pathways," MPRA Paper 115464, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Coad, Alex, 2019. "Persistent heterogeneity of R&D intensities within sectors: Evidence and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-50.
    17. Bart Ark & Dirk Pilat, 2024. "Productivity drivers and pro-productivity policies: G20 economies, India and South Korea," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 95-121, October.
    18. Cauwels, Peter & Sornette, Didier, 2022. "Are ‘flow of ideas’ and ‘research productivity’ in secular decline?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    19. Rojko, Katarina & Lužar, Borut, 2022. "Scientific performance across research disciplines: Trends and differences in the case of Slovenia," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    20. Bart van Ark & Klaas de Vries & Abdul Erumban, 2024. "Are Intangibles Running out of Steam?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 46, pages 38-59, Spring.

    More about this item

    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:ipt:iptwpa:jrc141091. 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: Publication Officer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ipjrces.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.