Competing Internationally: On the Importance of R&D for Export Activity

36 Pages Posted: 17 Oct 2010

See all articles by Dirk Czarnitzki

Dirk Czarnitzki

KU Leuven - Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy, and Innovation; Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW)

Annelies Wastyn

KU Leuven - Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 1, 2010

Abstract

Export is an important factor to improve growth and welfare especially for industrialized small, open economies such as Belgium. Policy may be interested in key variables that can influence export. This paper finds evidence for the importance of R&D for export activities using Belgian firm-level data. To control for reverse causality, R&D-subsidy variables are used to instrument R&D. The results show that R&D policies may indirectly help to increase the export performance of the economy. Due to the exceptionally high openness of Belgium, two subsamples of firms are considered, domestic firms and multinational firms. We observe positive effects of R&D on export for both domestic and MNEs. Once we instrument R&D because of its potential endogeneity, however, it turns out that the effect of R&D on exports is larger for domestic firms than for multinational companies.

Keywords: Export, R&D, Multinational Enterprises, Innovation Policy

JEL Classification: F23, O33, O38

Suggested Citation

Czarnitzki, Dirk and Wastyn, Annelies, Competing Internationally: On the Importance of R&D for Export Activity (October 1, 2010). ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 10-071, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1692648 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1692648

Dirk Czarnitzki (Contact Author)

KU Leuven - Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy, and Innovation ( email )

Naamsestraat 69 bus 3500
Leuven, 3000
Belgium

Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) ( email )

P.O. Box 10 34 43
Mannheim, 68034
Germany

Annelies Wastyn

KU Leuven - Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation ( email )

Oude Markt 13
Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant 3000
Belgium

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
133
Abstract Views
836
Rank
275,958
PlumX Metrics