English text only STI Working Paper SeriesThe Working Papers series of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry of the OECD is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies prepared by staff in the Directorate or by outside consultants working on OECD projects. The papers included in the series are of a technical and analytical nature and deal with issues of data, methodology and empirical analysis in the areas of work of DSTI. The Working Papers are generally available only in their original languageEnglish or French -with a summary in the other. THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC R&D EXPENDITURE ON BUSINESS R&D Dominique Guellec and Bruno van PottelsbergheThis document attempts to quantify the aggregate net effect of government funding on business R&D in 17 OECD Member countries over the past two decades. Grants, procurement, tax incentives and direct performance of research (in public laboratories or universities) are the major policy tools in the field. The major results of the study are the following:Direct government funding of R&D performed by firms (either grants or procurement) has a positive effect on business financed R&D (one dollar given to firms results in 1.70 dollars of research on average). Tax incentives have a positive (although rather short-lived) effect on business-financed R&D. Direct funding as well as tax incentives are more effective when they are stable over time: firms do not invest in additional R&D if they are uncertain of the durability of the government support. Direct government funding and R&D tax incentives are substitutes: increased intensity of one reduces the effect of the other on business R&D. The stimulating effect of government funding varies with respect to its generosity: it increases up to a certain threshold (about 13% of business R&D) and then decreases beyond.

This paper presents estimates of the long-term impact of various sources of knowledge (R&D performed by the business sector, the public sector and foreign firms) on multifactor productivity growth of 16 countries from 1980 to 1998. The main results show that the three sources of knowledge are significant determinants of long term productivity growth. Further evidence suggests that several factors determine the extent to which each source of knowledge contributes to productivity growth. These factors are the absorptive capability, the origin of funding, the socio economic objectives of government support, and the type of public institutions that perform R&D. AbstractThis paper presents estimates of the long-term impact of various sources of knowledge (R&D performed by the business sector, the public sector and foreign firms) on multifactor productivity growth of 16 countries from 1980 to 1998. The main results show that the three sources of knowledge are significant determinants of long term productivity growth. Further evidence suggests that several factors determine the extent to which each source of knowledge contributes to productivity growth. These factors are the absorptive capability, the origin of funding, the socio economic objectives of government support, and the type of public institutions that perform R&D.JEL: O11, O40, O47, O50

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Economic theory views patents as policy instruments aimed at fostering innovation and diffusion. Three major implications are drawn regarding current policy debates. First, patents may not be the most effective means of protection for inventors to recover R&D investments when imitation is costly and first mover advantages are important. Second, patentability requirements, such as novelty or non-obviousness, should be sufficiently stringent to avoid the grant of patents for inventions with low social value that increase the social cost of the patent system. Third, the trade-off between the patent policy instruments of length and breadth could be used to provide sufficient incentives to develop inventions with high social value. Beyond these three implications, economic theory also pleads for a mechanism design approach: an optimal patent system could be based on a menu of different degrees of patent protection where stronger protection would involve higher fees, allowing self-selection by inventors.

International audienceThe paper describes the dynamics of employment at a firm and sector level in the French industry and examines how far technological innovation can give account of it. We use a firm sample of 15,186 firms, over the 1986-1990 period. The two facts we want to explain at a firm level and a sector level are the net change in employment and the micro turmoil (transfers between competing firms). Innovating firms and sectors create jobs more than others over medium run (5 years). Process innovation is more job creating than product innovation at the firm level, but the converse is true at the sector level. This puzzle is probably be due to substitution effects (creative destruction)