La investigación y el desarrollo como determinantes diferenciados y complementarios de la innovación y la productividad

Abstract

The analysis of the relationship between R&D and innovation results and productivity has a long tradition in the literature on economics of innovation. However, a drawback of this literature is that R&D is mostly treated as a homogenous activity, while it includes two different activities: research and development. This article analyzes the differentiated effect of research and development on different innovation outputs, and tests the existence of complementarity between these activities in determining productivity. our results show that the impact of research and development is similar when patent applications are analyzed, but we also find interesting differences when analyzing other innovation outputs. In this sense, the effect of development expenditures is much higher for the probability of introducing product innovations. Moreover, we find that development expenditures have a larger effect on sales from new products than research expenditures. Finally, we find evidence suggesting that there is complementarity between research and development in determining productivity.