IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0916.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Productivity Growth and R&D at the Business Level: Results From the PIMS Data Base

Author

Listed:
  • Kim B. Clark
  • Zvi Griliches

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study of productivity growth and R&D in the 1970s using data on narrowly defined 'business units within a firm. Estimates are developed under different assumptions about technology ,industry effects, and changes in the return to R&D over time. The R&D data are broken down into process and product expenditures, and some information is available on past success in developing proprietary technology, andontheincidenceofma3or changes in technology in the recent past. The results suggest a significant relationship between R&D and the growth of productivity; in versions using total factor productivity as the dependent variable, the estimated rate of return to R&D investment is about 20 percent. We find some evidence that R&D has its biggest effect on productivity in those markets where major changes in technology have occurred in the recent past. Previous success in developing proprietary process technology affects total factor productivity directly, but appears to have little effect on estimated returns to R&D. The notion that the productivity of R&D declined in the l970sfinds Little support in this data. Irrespective of model specification, trends in the R&D coefficient are substantively arid statistically insignificant. Our calculations suggest that reduced investment in R&D may have accounted for at least 10 percent of the decline in total factor productivity growth in the l970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim B. Clark & Zvi Griliches, 1982. "Productivity Growth and R&D at the Business Level: Results From the PIMS Data Base," NBER Working Papers 0916, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0916
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0916.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "R&D and Productivity Growth at the Industry Level: Is There Still a Relationship?," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 213-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Griliches, Zvi, 1980. "R & D and the Productivity Slowdown," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(2), pages 343-348, May.
    3. 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.
    4. Pakes, Ariel & Schankerman, Mark A., 1978. "The Rate of Obsolescence of Knowledge, Research Gestation Labs, and the Private Rate of Return to Research Resources," Working Papers 78-13, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    5. Ariel Pakes & Mark Schankerman, 1984. "The Rate of Obsolescence of Patents, Research Gestation Lags, and the Private Rate of Return to Research Resources," NBER Chapters, in: R&D, Patents, and Productivity, pages 73-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Zvi Griliches, 1984. "R&D, Patents, and Productivity," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gril84-1, October.
    7. Zvi Griliches & Jacques Mairesse, 1981. "Productivity and R and D at the Firm Level," NBER Working Papers 0826, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Jiann-Chyuan Wang & Kuen-Hung Tsai, 2003. "Productivity Growth and R&D Expenditure in Taiwan's Manufacturing Firms," NBER Working Papers 9724, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Productivity, R&D, and Basic Research at the Firm Level in the 1970s," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 82-99, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ugur, Mehmet & Trushin, Eshref & Solomon, Edna & Guidi, Francesco, 2016. "R&D and productivity in OECD firms and industries: A hierarchical meta-regression analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 2069-2086.
    4. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Mairesse, Jacques & Mohnen, Pierre, 2010. "Measuring the Returns to R&D," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1033-1082, Elsevier.
    5. Keller, Wolfgang, 2002. "Trade and the Transmission of Technology," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 5-24, March.
    6. Ugur, Mehmet & Guidi, Francesco & Solomon, Edna & Trushin, Eshref, 2014. "R&D investment, productivity and rates of return: A meta-analysis of the evidence on OECD firms and industries," MPRA Paper 59686, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 22 Oct 2014.
    7. Kuen‐Hung Tsai & Jiann‐Chyuan Wang, 2004. "R&D Productivity and the Spillover Effects of High‐tech Industry on the Traditional Manufacturing Sector: The Case of Taiwan," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(10), pages 1555-1570, November.
    8. Lach, Saul, 1995. "Patents and productivity growth at the industry level: A first look," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 101-108, July.
    9. Marios Zachariadis, 2003. "R&D, innovation, and technological progress: a test of the Schumpeterian framework without scale effects," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(3), pages 566-586, August.
    10. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 287-343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. M. Ishaq Nadiri, 1993. "Innovations and Technological Spillovers," NBER Working Papers 4423, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Ornaghi, Carmine, 2006. "Spillovers in product and process innovation: Evidence from manufacturing firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 349-380, March.
    13. Yuko Kinoshita, 2000. "R&D and technology spillovers via FDI: Innovation and absorptive capacity," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp163, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    14. Hans Loof & Almas Heshmati, 2006. "On the relationship between innovation and performance: A sensitivity analysis," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4-5), pages 317-344.
    15. David Popp, 2005. "They Don't Invent Them Like They Used To: An Examination of Energy Patent Citations Over Time," NBER Working Papers 11415, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Mairesse, Jacques, 1995. "Exploring the relationship between R&D and productivity in French manufacturing firms," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 263-293, January.
    17. Kinoshita, Yuko, 2001. "R&D and Technology Spillovers through FDI: Innovation and Absorptive Capacity," CEPR Discussion Papers 2775, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Robert Wieser, 2001. "R&D and Productivity: Evidence for European and U.S. Firms in the 1990s," WIFO Working Papers 159, WIFO.
    19. David Popp, 2006. "They Don'T Invent Them Like They Used To: An Examination Of Energy Patent Citations Over Time," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(8), pages 753-776.
    20. Dirk Czarnitzki & Hanna Hottenrott & Susanne Thorwarth, 2011. "Industrial research versus development investment: the implications of financial constraints," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(3), pages 527-544.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0916. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.