DO SPILLOVERS MATTER WHEN ESTIMATING PRIVATE RETURNS TO R&D?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Eberhardt, Markus; Helmers, Christian; Strauss, Hubert
• 署名单位: University of Nottingham; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00272
• 发表日期: 2013-05
• 页码: 436-448
• 关键词: panel-data; productivity growth; TECHNOLOGY; TRADE; restrictions; INVESTMENT; distance; models; tests

摘要

A large body of literature estimates private returns to R&D adopting the Griliches knowledge production framework, which ignores the potential impact of spillovers on consistent estimation. Using a panel of twelve manufacturing industries across ten OECD economies, we investigate whether ignoring spillovers leads to bias in the estimated private returns to R&D. We compare results from a common factor framework, which accounts for spillovers and other unobserved shocks, to those from a standard Griliches approach. Our findings confirm that conventional estimates conflate own-R&D and spillover effects, implying that spillovers cannot be ignored even when the interest lies exclusively in evaluating private returns to R&D.