R&D drivers in young innovative companies

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the determinants of young innovative companies' (YICs) R&D activities taking into account the autoregressive nature of innovation. Using a large longitudinal dataset comprising Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1990-2008, we find that previous R&D experience is a fundamental determinant for mature and young firms, albeit to a smaller extent in the case of the YICs, suggesting that their innovation behaviour is less persistent and more erratic. Moreover, our results suggest that firm and market characteristics play a distinct role in boosting the innovation activity of firms of different age. In particular, while market concentration and the degree of product diversification are found to be important in fostering R&D activities in the sub-sample of mature firms only, YICs' spending on R&D appears to be more sensitive to demand-pull variables, suggesting the presence of credit constraints. These results have been obtained using a recently proposed dynamic type-2 tobit estimator, which accounts for individual effects and efficiently handles the initial conditions problem.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 6136

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
• Subject: R&D ; innovation ; Young Innovative Companies (YICs) ; dynamic type-2 tobit estimator ; Industrielle Forschung ; Innovation ; Unternehmensgründung ; Tobit-Modell ; Schätzung ; Spanien

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): García-Quevedo, José ; Pellegrino, Gabriele ; Vivarelli, Marco
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/58811
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-201112136887
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET