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We examine whether proprietary costs drive R&D-active firms' choice of private loan structure. We find that R&D-active firms are more likely to choose single-lender over multi-lender private loan financing. This is consistent with the theory that high-ability entrepreneurs protect their proprietary knowledge by communicating it to a single lender while disclosing generic and less sensitive information to the public. This propensity, however, significantly decreases after the enactment of the American Inventor's Protection Act (AIPA), which accelerated public disclosure of firms' patent details in filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This accelerated public disclosure potentially caused R&D information to spill over to rivals, increasing the proprietary costs of single-lender borrowers. AIPA enactment also increased the spread on R&D-active firms' single-lender loans. These findings contribute to the voluntary disclosure and financing choice literature by linking R&D-active firms' choice of single-lender financing to the proprietary costs of public disclosure. Data Availability: From public sources identified in the study. JEL Classifications: G12; G14; G21; M41. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marketing of Scientific & Research Organizations / Marketing Instytucji Naukowych i Badawczych is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We examine the effects of increased competition stemming from corporate tax rate cuts in foreign competitors' home countries on U.S. domestic manufacturing firms. We develop a measure of U.S. domestic firms' exposure to changes in foreign country tax rates and validate that the measure captures increased competition in the U.S. We find that, on average, U.S. domestic firms lose market power following declines in foreign country tax rates. We also find that, on average, U.S. domestic firms respond by increasing investment in research and development and capital expenditures and by improving total factor productivity. In cross-sectional analyses, we find the impact of foreign tax cuts is concentrated among U.S. domestic firms with low ex ante product differentiation. Taken together, these findings suggest that foreign country tax cuts escalate the competitive threat faced by U.S. domestic firms, and in response, U.S. domestic firms alter their investment strategies and/or become more productive. JEL Classifications: H2; H22; H25. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We predict that a firm's greater accounting comparability with its industry peers facilitates its learning from those peer firms' research and development (R&D) investments, allowing that firm to have greater innovative efficiency. We estimate accounting comparability using pro forma capitalized R&D earnings that link lagged R&D expenditures to future profitability employing the Almon (1965) distributed lag model. We find that greater accounting comparability leads to enhanced ability to predict future cash flows generated by R&D investments of peer firms. In the cross-section, we observe that the relation between accounting comparability and innovative efficiency is stronger if peer firms exhibit higher accounting (accrual) quality and are themselves successful innovators. In sum, this study shows that a shared qualitative characteristic of accounting, namely, accounting comparability, is positively associated with innovative efficiency. JEL Classifications: G12; G14; O32. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the interaction between financial constraints and R&D, I study two asset-pricing puzzles: mixed evidence on the financial constraints–return relation and the positive R&D-return relation. Unlike capital investment, R&D is more inflexible. A financially constrained R&D-intensive firm is more likely to suspend/discontinue R&D projects. Therefore, R&D-intensive firms' risk increases with their financial constraints. Conversely, constrained firms' risk increases with their R&D intensity. I find a robust empirical relation between financial constraints and stock returns, primarily among R&D-intensive firms. Moreover, R&D predicts returns only among financially constrained firms. This evidence suggests that financial constraints potentially drive the positive R&D-return relation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main aim of this study is to investigate to what extent equity crowdfunding could enable firms to outsource research and development activities. Likewise, the present study aims at analysing the relationship between desorptive capacity (DCAP) and equity crowdfunding performance. We also aim at studying the mediation role of ICT firm's capabilities, connective capacity and minor equity ownership. In this regard, this study intends to pioneer into connecting the knowledge management theory with the crowdfunding studies. A sample of 180 projects based on the top ten European equity crowdfunding platforms has been used. Findings indicate that desorptive capacity enables companies in developing external knowledge retention and expoitation which, in turn, enhance equity crowdfunding performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on new institutional economics and the innovation literature, this paper examines how subnational institutions can impact corporate research and development (R&D) investment in emerging economies. The study further investigates a key contingency of this institutional effect: a firm's country/ownership identity. Using China's pharmaceutical sector as the empirical context, we find that the quality of subnational institutions, such as the degree of government deregulation and the effectiveness of local contracting institutions, has a significantly positive impact on corporate R&D intensity. Moreover, this institutional effect is more salient in indigenous firms and international joint ventures than in wholly owned foreign subsidiaries. This study serves to shed light on future research on how multifaceted subnational institutions shape innovation activities across different types of business organizations in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically investigates the causal relationship between research and development (R&D) expenditure and innovation in Greece, during the period 1981–2009. It uses time series analysis, the theoretical background of the endogenous knowledge-based growth theories and the annual number of patent applications to the European Patent Organization as proxy of innovation activity. The Johansen method is applied to examine the possibility of co-integration. The results confirm the presence of a long-run relationship between R&D expenditure and innovation. The total and private R&D expenditure appear to have a positive effect on total and business innovation. In addition, the public R&D expenditure has a positive influence on business and total innovation, which indicates the existence of significant externalities of public sector research. The long-run elasticity of innovation with respect to R&D expenditure is estimated to be, on average, 1.9. Implications for public policies and related practices are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study to what extent inconsistent feedback signals about performance affect firm adaptive behavior in terms of changes made to research-and-development (R&D) investments. We argue that inconsistency in performance feedback—based on discrepancies between two distinct performance signals—affects the degree to which such investments will be changed. Our aim is to show that accounting for inconsistent performance feedback is necessary as predictions for the direction of change in R&D investments based on the individual performance feedback signals are contradictory. Furthermore, we contribute by proposing a holistic consideration mechanism as an alternative to the selective attention mechanism previously applied to inconsistent performance feedback. Our findings show that the impact of inconsistency depends on the exact configuration of the underlying performance feedback signal discrepancies. While consistently negative performance feedback signals would amplify their impact in stimulating increased R&D investments, inconsistent performance feedback signals created more nuanced effects. Having lower performance compared to an industry-based peer group—despite doing well compared to the previous year—made firms decrease their R&D investments. For the opposite case of inconsistent performance feedback, we did not find an effect on change in R&D investments. These findings support to a degree our contention that explaining the effects of inconsistent performance feedback requires a holistic consideration theoretical mechanism instead of one involving selective attention. In sum, these findings suggest future research should take into account the differences between distinct instances of inconsistent performance feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge has become the main source of value creation in many businesses. In the paper we investigate applied approaches for estimating the value of intangible assets published in recent years. The objective of our paper is to compare three main approaches, which were used as intangible intensity indicators in last five years. We apply them on a sample of data of European companies from database Amadeus. The analysis covers ROTA measure as well as investment in intangible assets and expenses into research and development as the key drivers of the knowledge creation in a company. We show that for European firms with increasing ROTA rank measure, the value of R&D expenses and disclosed intangible assets increase as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the factors influencing the Chinese manufacturing industry's innovation and industrial performance utilizing a panel data approach on a sample of Chinese manufacturing enterprises over the period of 2008-2013. The industries were grouped according to related sectors into five groups, a general group was also created which included the whole data sample. The study found that research and development (R&D) expenditure positively influenced the growth of product innovation and industrial performance, but not necessarily knowledge innovation and export performance. Also, expenditure on new product development had a positive impact on both innovation and industrial performance. The growth of patent application was discovered to be influenced by an R&D project and foreign patent license. Finally, the number of enterprises and firm size (i.e. number of employees) contributed positively to the industrial output performance. The findings suggest that industrial R&D and new product development influences the success of product innovation and sales performance. The study recommends that the government should set up policies that will stimulate industrial R&D, while supporting technology transfers from foreign partners. Most importantly, government policies on the development of the industry should be addressed on a sectorial level and not a 'one-size-fit-all' type of policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether discretion in reporting pension expenses mitigates research and development (R&D) manipulation. Using a sample of Japanese manufacturing firms during the fiscal years 2001-2011 where both pension costs and R&D expenditures have large impacts on the bottom-line earnings, I find that higher discount rates are associated with higher R&D investment among firms in which pension expenses could have large impacts on reported earnings. I also find that this relationship is found only among firms in high-tech industries. These results suggest that pension accrual management substitutes costly R&D manipulation that may hurt future competitive edge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the economic value of both embodied technological change and Research and Development (R&D) investment as proxies for the inputs of innovative activities conducted by Vietnamese firms. Our main focus is on the profitability of young innovative companies (YICs), private innovative companies (PICs), and small and young companies (SYCs). In particular, we test whether YICs could prove successful in fostering economic development through their technological change activities. Results show that (a) although YICs are more R&D intensive and innovative than PICs and SYCs, in general they do not produce equivalent performance; however those specific YICs focusing on technological change potentially outperform their counterparts, and (b) PICs are more capable than the other types of firms in translating their innovative effort to higher profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether corporate governance and product market competition interact to affect the profitability of corporate research and development (R&D) investments. Firms announcing R&D spending changes experience positive and significant wealth effects, and these effects are mainly driven by good-governance firms. Investors appear to view announcements of R&D spending changes undertaken by firms with stronger shareholder rights as evidence of value creation. Moreover, the favorable wealth effects are stronger for good-governance firms in noncompetitive industries than in competitive industries, supporting the argument that good governance substitutes for product market competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore the characteristics of symmetric R&D networks that generate the highest overall welfare in a setting where spillovers between non-cooperating firms are ignored. The relationship between the network population and the outcomes is shown to be sensitive to the market structure. The first result pertains to the features of the successive efficient networks. In a differentiated product market, the consistency of the social and individual benefits is not affected by expanding the network. In contrast, the social benefit in a homogeneous product market limits the cooperation between firms. This in turn creates a gap between individual and social profits (an undesirable area). This gap between the two perspectives is maximized by increasing the network size. The second result concerns the expected improvement in the total welfare with respect to the network size. The results show that the benefit behind expanding the socially optimal structure is maximized when firms belong to a differentiated product market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UNFCCC has stated that energy policies and measures to address climate change should be cost-effective to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost. To mitigate the bulk of carbon emission from the electricity sector, a large market penetration of renewable energy technologies with as low cost as possible is a key research topic. The energy-related R&D policy in Japan aims to achieve a green economy. In our study, based on this context, we demonstrated how to optimize the timing of public R&D investment within the framework of a bottom-up partial equilibrium model. The developed optimization model represents the Japanese electricity sector and minimizes the total system cost subject to an accumulated carbon emission constraint. Our main research focus is the role of R&D activity, especially in the innovation stage of renewable technologies. We employ a two-factor learning curve and quantify the impact of the learning effect on the dynamic diffusion of major renewable technologies. The study shows a dynamic technology transition in the Japanese electricity sector and the optimized R&D investment schedule for each renewable technology. With the first-best energy policy, an R&D budget of more than 2000 million USD would be allocated to PV in 2050, which corresponds to 45% of the energy-related Japanese R&D budget in 2050. Because some have criticized the uncertainty problems with dynamic simulations and learning models, supplemental sensitivity analyses are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate venture capital (CVC) investment has increasingly become an important source of entrepreneurial finance. Accordingly, while scholars have traditionally focused on understanding the main motivations behind CVC activity and its impact on the investing corporate firm, more recently, scholars have also started to emphasize the importance of understanding the impact ofCVCinvestment on the investee venture. In particular, these recent studies commonly show that CVC investment has a positive effect on the venture's innovation. While the positive link between CVC investment and the venture's innovation output is well established in the literature, the organizational mechanisms through which this relationship unfolds within the venture remain relatively underexplored. In this study, we fill this gap in the literature by examining the effects of CVC ownership, founder incumbency, and the CVC investor-founder interaction on research and development (R&D) investment strategies in venture capital (VC)-financed, technology-based entrepreneurial ventures. In doing so, we aim to provide a novel explanation of the organizational mechanisms that lead to greater investment in research and development (R&D), especially with regard to the interaction between CVC investors and founder managers. We argue thatCVCownership and founder incumbency positively affect entrepreneurial firms' R&D investment and, more importantly, that the CVC ownership effect is effectively amplified when the founder is an incumbent top manager because of goal congruence and knowledge spillover from the CVC firm. Our empirical analysis supports our hypotheses while addressing potential endogeneity concerns. Our results also support various mechanisms by utilizing the data on CVC investor's board membership, CVC investor heterogeneity, the founder's technological background, and the investee venture's industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each country is differently preoccupied, by allocating certain amounts of money, in funding R & D projects. The paper aims to analyse the levels of money allocation in various countries in order to observe the strategies discussed in this way in two different moments: just before the onset of the recently global economic crisis and at a period of at least five years after the time of the economic and financial crisis outburst. This analysis starts from the idea of sustainable development aimed at economic growth through the use of active measures and technical and economic solutions, allowing: reducing energy consumption, increasing the share of electricity from renewable sources, sustainable transport, reducing total emissions of greenhouse gases conservation and management of natural resources, waste management, and environmental protection. All these aspects can be achieved only through coherent strategies in the field of R & D funding. At the level of implementation of these strategies there are "actors" who contribute directly in financing projects in the sphere of research and development. In this respect are analysed average values/capita regarding expenditure incurred by EU member states in the sphere of research and development activities in relation to three sectors: business environment, governmental sector and higher education field. Using the methodology described in the paper to which the used data were processed using SPSS, will be generated a number of clusters for each of the two mentioned moments, related to those that will be identified certain features that define a certain typology of action regarding strategy for research and development sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates a dynamic structural model of discrete Research and Development (R&D) investment and quantifies its cost and long-run benefit for German manufacturing firms. The model incorporates linkages between R&D choice, product and process innovations, and future productivity and profits. The long-run payoff to R&D is the proportional difference in expected firm value generated by the investment. It increases firm value by 6.7% for the median firm in high-tech industries but only 2.8% in low-tech industries. Simulations show that reductions in maintenance costs of innovation significantly raise investment rates and productivity, whereas reductions in startup costs have little effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe and the USA are the two popular overseas R&D investment destinations for Chinese companies. We explore whether there are significant differences or similarities in the comparison of international R&D strategies of Chinese MNCs in Europe and the USA. Specifically, we examine how Chinese MNCs implement R&D strategies to facilitate learning. We adopt the method of theory building from case study research to answer this question. Based on 14 R&D units of 12 Chinese companies in Europe and the USA, our analysis investigates and compares the R&D strategies of Chinese multinationals in Europe and the USA, focusing on their strategic motives, R&D structure, and modes of learning. Our findings have strong managerial and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the statistical classification of economic activities is not able to adequately display companies' R&D expenditures, the aim of this paper is to create a concordance list between industry sectors and technologies, enabling us to report the business R&D expenditures not only by industries but also by technology fields. To construct the concordance, we match data on R&D expenditures with patent data at the micro-level, i.e. at the level of companies and patent applicants, respectively. In a further step the business R&D expenditures are aggregated at the level of technology fields. This concordance table also allows us to provide patent statistics at the level of industries. The patent data for the matching were extracted from the 'EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database' (PATSTAT). The data on German business R&D expenditures are provided by the SV Wissenschaftsstatistik. The two data sources are matched by applying a string matching algorithm based on the distance between two text strings. The matching covers 44% of all German patent applicants and 83% of all patent filings at the EPO and the German Patent and Trademark Office in 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding technology evolution through periodic landscaping is an important stage of strategic planning in R&D management. In fields like that of healthcare, where initial R&D investment is huge and good medical products serve patients better, activities of periodic landscaping become crucial for planning. Approximately 5% of the world's population has hearing disabilities. Current hearing aid products meet less than 10% of the global needs. Patent data and classifications on cochlear implants from 1977-2010 show the technology evolution in the area of such an implant. We attempt to highlight emergence and disappearance of patent classes over a period of time indicating changes in growth of cochlear implant technologies. Using network analysis technique we explore and capture the technology evolution in patent classes by showing what emerged or disappeared over time. Dominant classes are identified. The sporadic influence of university research in cochlear implants is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the impact of network strategies on innovation strategies carried out in 2011 by 44 top R&D spending bio-pharmaceutical companies. Gathering patent and accounting data, we built the business network of joint development activities making use of social network analysis (SNA). Our findings show that each network strategy is related to different innovation strategies, confirming that social network analysis is an effective instrument for explaining why firms enter into R&D agreements with partners and the linkage of such collaborations with the overall innovation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the results of the 2017 R&D Trends Forecast annual survey of the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) in Virginia. Topics include the estimated increase in global research and development (R&D) investments based on purchasing power parity (PPP) values, a strong and growing support for existing business projects, and sentiments regarding R&D expenditures from sectors such as aerospace, academia, and the government/nonprofit segment.

Copyright of Ekonomika is the property of Society of Economists 'Ekonomika' and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reports on the growing global food insecurity problem driven by inadequate and misdirected research and development investments aimed at increasing crop yields. Other related topics discussed include the projected increases in food demand, the declining yield growth for major food crops and the factors contributing to crop yield decreases, including political disruption, climate change and associated temperature increases.

Research and development is the key to the fuure of Indian pharmaceutical industry. R&D spends of Indian firms have been increasing during year 2000 to 2013 as pharmaceutical firms kept building their product pipelines for regulated markets like US and Europe. Pharmaceutical industry in India is becoming more and more export intensive with top ten companies deriving more than sixty percent of their sales from exports. At the same time, R&D intensity of Indian pharmaceutical firms have been consistently increasing with six percent of sales being spent on R&D. It was found that the firms leading in terms of exports intensity were also found to be the leaders in terms of R&D expenses. It is therefore important to study the two way causal relationship amongst R&D expenses and exports. The data set used in this empirical investigation consists of a sample of Indian Pharmaceutical firms covered by the Center for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE), Prowess Database. The data presented are for the period 2000-01 to 2012-13. This study attempts at having a model fit for the parameters (variables) of exports of Indian pharmaceutical industry. The paper aims at understanding the relationships amongst the variables namely; R&D expenditure bifurcated in to current and capital expenditure, pharmaceutical exports and total sales. It brings out the causal relationships amongst the variables which reveals unique characteristic of Indian pharmaceutical industry in terms of a significant but short-lived impact of R&D investment on exports. Also, the vector autoregressive (VAR) model suggests that R&D capital expenditure alone is not sufficient to induce exports; rather R&D current expenditure together with R&D capital expenditure alone is not sufficient to induce exports. It shows that although Indian pharmaceutical industry has leveraged the benefits of a globalized economy but, it still lags much behind the MNCs (Multinational Corporations) in terms of investment in R&D (Research and Development) which is the main deterrent to the industry to reach the next level of internationalization. Results of the study provides empirical evidence that a majority of R&D investment from Indian firms is aimed at developing low cost generics for exports in to the regulated markets like US and Europe; and little investment is made on funding new product development. The study recommends adoption of innovative partnership modelsto fund R&D activities aimed at developing new products which would strengthen product portfolio required to sustain growth in international markets and to reduce dependency of Indian firms on supply of plain generics to regulated markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence in Korea is currently prospering. The media are regularly reporting AI-enabled products such as smart advisors, personal robots, autonomous cars, and humanlevel intelligence machines. The IT industry is investing in deep learning and AI to maintain the global competitive edge in its services and products. The Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning (MSIP) has launched new funding programs in AI and cognitive science to implement the government's newly adopted endeavor of building a creative economy and software-centered society. However, AI did not always flourish as it now does. Similar to the history of AI worldwide, AI research and industry in Korea have faced both ups and downs in their history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Government- and charity-funded medical research and private sector research and development (R&D) are widely held to be complements. The only attempts to measure this complementarity so far have used data from the United States of America and are inevitably increasingly out of date. This study estimates the magnitude of the effect of government and charity biomedical and health research expenditure in the United Kingdom (UK), separately and in total, on subsequent private pharmaceutical sector R&D expenditure in the UK.Methods: The results for this study are obtained by fitting an econometric vector error correction model (VECM) to time series for biomedical and health R&D expenditure in the UK for ten disease areas (including 'other') for the government, charity and private sectors. The VECM model describes the relationship between public (i.e. government and charities combined) sector expenditure, private sector expenditure and global pharmaceutical sales as a combination of a long-term equilibrium and short-term movements.Results: There is a statistically significant complementary relationship between public biomedical and health research expenditure and private pharmaceutical R&D expenditure. A 1% increase in public sector expenditure is associated in the best-fit model with a 0.81% increase in private sector expenditure. Sensitivity analysis produces a similar and statistically significant result with a slightly smaller positive elasticity of 0.68. Overall, every additional £1 of public research expenditure is associated with an additional £0.83-£1.07 of private sector R&D spend in the UK; 44% of that additional private sector expenditure occurs within 1 year, with the remainder accumulating over decades. This spillover effect implies a real annual rate of return (in terms of economic impact) to public biomedical and health research in the UK of 15-18%. When combined with previous estimates of the health gain that results from public medical research in cancer and cardiovascular disease, the total rate of return would be around 24-28%.Conclusion: Overall, this suggests that government and charity funded research in the UK crowds in additional private sector R&D in the UK. The implied historical returns from UK government and charity funded investment in medical research in the UK compare favourably with the rates of return achieved on investments in the rest of the UK economy and are greatly in excess of the 3.5% real annual rate of return required by the UK government to public investments generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global economic crisis exacerbated by U.S. sequestration has resulted in funding for research and development either remaining flat or declining slightly. By comparison, collectively, countries in Europe and Asia have expanded R&D investments. The purpose of this study was to understand the characteristics of and extent to which international sponsors are funding R&D at U.S. research institutions. This retrospective, longitudinal cohort study included R&D expenditures data from 2006 to 2012 for a convenience sample of 24 U.S. research universities selected from the 2012 report of Higher education research and development (National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2013), broken down by total R&D expenditures, international support of R&D expenditures, countries, and sponsors of that support. A steady increase in R&D expenditures from international sources for successful universities suggests that international investment in R&D may become a significant driver of research innovation for all U.S. universities. The results of this study support the importance for having U.S. research institutions invest in research administration infrastructure to facilitate international collaborations and employ deliberate strategic directions in securing international support for R&D expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the determinants and effects of domestic versus cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the pharmaceutical industry. Results show that companies that have had large research and development (R&D) expenditures as a percentage of sales in the past, but which have not had a significant number of drug approvals in the previous five years, tend to merge with foreign firms. Domestic mergers are formed between two firms within the same country, which typically have lower R&D expenditures as a percentage of sales and drug approvals in the previous five years. In addition, results show that domestic mergers increase drug approvals in the short run, but the effect diminishes three years after an M&A is finalized. However, cross-border mergers, which occur between two companies from different countries, largely have long-lasting (five years or more) positive effects on new drug approvals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestically funded (and performed) research and development (R&D) has historically been a major source of productivity gains in U.S. agriculture, and a principal source of R&D spillovers to the rest of the world. In the waning decades of the 20th century, U.S. policymakers opted to ratchet down the rate of growth in public support for food and agricultural R&D. As the 21st century unfolds, slowing growth has given way to real cutbacks, reversing the accumulation of U.S.-sourced public R&D capital over most of the previous century and more. The 2014 Farm Bill did little to reverse these long-run research funding trajectories-politicians failed to heed the economic evidence about the still substantial social payoffs of that research and the consequent slowdown in U.S. agricultural productivity growth associated with the spending slowdown. Meanwhile, R&D spending by other countries has been moving in different directions. We present new evidence that today's middle-income countries-notably China, Brazil, and India- are not only growing in relative importance as producers of agricultural innovations through investments in public R&D, they are also gaining considerable ground in terms of their share of privately performed research of relevance for agriculture. The already substantive changes in global public and private R&D investment trajectories are accelerating. If history is any guide to the future, these changing R&D trajectories could have profound consequences for the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture in the decades ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article gives an overview of the observable research and development (R&D) expenditures in the creative industries. Particular focus is given on the case of the cinema industry, where and how R&D takes place in the content and services being offered, and the various forms of innovation to be found in such sectors.

An Interview with Barry Jaruzelski, senior partner at strategy consulting team Strategy& is presented. Topics discussed include his studies related to relationship between innovation spending and financial performance of research and development (R&D) in a business firm, more spending for R&D in software and biotechnology companies than other companies, integration of innovation strategy with business strategy.

Patent activity is specified in the available literature as one of most common effects of research and development (R&D) activities. Current studies’ results, presented in the literature, focus on a single or group of enterprises, but do not take into account the relationship between R&D spending and patent activity at the mesoeconomic level, exemplified by the business enterprise sector. The scope of this article is to evaluate the efficiency of R&D expenditure from the patent activity point of view. The main research question is: does the efficiency of R&D expenditure, measured by the patent activity of the business enterprise sector, improve in the long term? The research covers 28 European Union countries. The conclusion is that increasing patent activity in the business enterprise sector, in the long term, depends on the management of R&D activities in entities belonging to that sector, rather than increasing R&D spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Funding research has been, after 1989, a thorny issue in Romania. Regardless of the value of the funds allocated from the GDP for funding this activity, they proved insufficient compared to the needs for research. One solution for funding this activity is the Core Programme. This programme sought to provide a source of funding for the research activity of the National Institutes of Research and Development (INCD), especially for fundamental research. Although the value allocated from the State Budget for this activity is around 10%, we must make note of the fact that in certain research fields, the amounts allocated through this programme are essentially important. Funding through this programme represents a starting point for the respective entities, as the results obtained from fundamental research could be the basis for research agreements with economic entities in the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A database of over 2,700 agri-food businesses in the region of Valencia, Spain was used to test the influence of internal characteristics of the firm and of external characteristics linked to local systems on the willingness to participate in R&D activities promoted by knowledge supporting institutions. A Probit model was estimated, correcting possible intragroup correlations when group variables are combined with individual data. Results show that R&D activities are enhanced in medium and large firms, co-ops, experienced firms and better physical access to technological centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Better estimates of changes in the level and structure of national, regional, and global expenditures on health research and development (R&D) are needed as an important source of information for advancing countries' health research policies. However, such estimates are difficult to compile and comparison between countries needs careful calibration. We outline the steps that need to be taken to make reliable estimates of trends in countries' expenditures on health R&D, describe that an ideal approach would involve the use of international sets of deflators and exchange rates that are specific to health R&D activities, and explain which methods should be used given the current absence of such health R&D-specific deflators and exchange rates. Finally, we describe what should be the way forward in improving our ability to make reliable estimates of trends in countries' health R&D expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]