Money Isn’t Everything

The results of a recent study of the Booz Allen Hamilton Global Innovation 1000 — the 1,000 publicly held companies from around the world that spent the most on research and development in 2004 — may provoke a crisis of faith. The study,a comprehensive effort to assess the influence of R&D on corporate performance, suggests that nonmonetary factors may be the most important drivers of a company’s return on innovation investment.

Identifying Technology Spillovers and Product Market Rivalry

The authors show using panel data on U.S. firms between 1981 and 2001 that both technology and product market spillovers operate, but that net social returns are several times larger than private returns. The spillover effects are also revealed when they analyze three high-tech sectors in detail - pharmaceuticals, computer hardware and telecommunication equipment.

International Allocation of R&D Activity by U.S. Multinationals: The East Asian Experience in Comparative Perspective

This paper examines patterns and determinants of overseas R&D expenditure of MNEs, with emphasis on the East Asian experience, using a new panel dataset relating to U.S.-based manufacturing MNEs over the period 1990-2001. It is found that inter-country differences in R&D intensity of operation of US MNE affiliates are fundamentally determined by the domestic market size, overall R&D capability and cost of hiring R&D personnel.

Effects of Acquisitions on Product and Process Innovation and R&D Performance

Using a game theoretical model on firms simultaneous investments in product and process innovation, the authors deduct and empirically test hypotheses on the optimal R&D portfolio, investment, performance, and dynamic efficiency of R&D for acquisitions and in independently competing firms. They use Community Innovation Survey data on Italian manufacturing firms.