IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwprg/2016-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explaining firm sensitivity to R&D subsidies within a dose-response model: The role of financial constraints, real cost of investment, and strategic value of R&D

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Cerulli
  • Bianca Poti'

Abstract

This paper analyzes the determinants of firm additional R&D behavior within a second-generation dose-response model. We consider three sets of R&D behaviors explanatory factors: (i) firm financial constraints; (ii) investment adjustment costs; and (iii) firm R&D market relevance. Using a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, we find a positive effect of R&D subsidization, mainly driven by companies receiving a comparatively lower share of R&D covered by public support: no more than around 20% (or 15%) for gross (or net) R&D (i.e., threshold effect). Three clear conclusions are then drawn from further inspection: (i) liquidity constraints (or funding structure) discriminate between different firm response to public subsidy; (ii) investment adjustment costs, approximated by the size of the R&D project (including the amount of subsidy), discourage firm additionality behavior, and (iii) firm size and strategic relevance of R&D make companies more responsive to public support.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Poti', 2016. "Explaining firm sensitivity to R&D subsidies within a dose-response model: The role of financial constraints, real cost of investment, and strategic value of R&D," DEM Working Papers 2016/09, Department of Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwprg:2016/09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economia.unitn.it/alfresco/download/workspace/SpacesStore/830688a4-2072-4c6b-8229-7ef2d990ebec/DEM2016_09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pratap, Sangeeta, 2003. "Do adjustment costs explain investment-cash flow insensitivity?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(11), pages 1993-2006.
    2. Elisabeth Müller & Volker Zimmermann, 2009. "The importance of equity finance for R&D activity," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 303-318, October.
    3. Gilchrist, Simon & Himmelberg, Charles P., 1995. "Evidence on the role of cash flow for investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 541-572, December.
    4. Bronwyn H. Hall, 2010. "The Financing of Innovative Firms," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 1(1).
    5. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Lopes-Bento, Cindy, 2013. "Value for money? New microeconometric evidence on public R&D grants in Flanders," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 76-89.
    6. Timothy Erickson & Toni M. Whited, 2000. "Measurement Error and the Relationship between Investment and q," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 1027-1057, October.
    7. Hall, Bronwyn H & Griliches, Zvi & Hausman, Jerry A, 1986. "Patents and R and D: Is There a Lag?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(2), pages 265-283, June.
    8. Frederique Savignac, 2008. "Impact Of Financial Constraints On Innovation: What Can Be Learned From A Direct Measure?," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 553-569.
    9. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2010. "Measuring firms’ financial constraints: Evidence for Portugal through different approaches," GEMF Working Papers 2010-15, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    10. Coad, Alex, 2010. "Neoclassical vs evolutionary theories of financial constraints: Critique and prospectus," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 206-218, August.
    11. Marino, Marianna & Parrotta, Pierpaolo & Sala, Davide, 2010. "New Perspectives on the Evaluation of Public R&D Funding," Working Papers 11-2, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    12. Abel, Andrew B & Eberly, Janice C, 1994. "A Unified Model of Investment under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1369-1384, December.
    13. Abel, Andrew B. & Eberly, Janice C., 1999. "The effects of irreversibility and uncertainty on capital accumulation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 339-377, December.
    14. Dirk Czarnitzki, 2006. "Research And Development In Small And Medium‐Sized Enterprises: The Role Of Financial Constraints And Public Funding," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 53(3), pages 335-357, July.
    15. Dirk Czarnitzki & Hanna Hottenrott, 2011. "R&D investment and financing constraints of small and medium-sized firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 65-83, January.
    16. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2003. "Further results on instrumental variables estimation of average treatment effects in the correlated random coefficient model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 185-191, May.
    17. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    18. G. M.P. Swann, 2009. "The Economics of Innovation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13211, December.
    19. Sean Cleary, 1999. "The Relationship between Firm Investment and Financial Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 673-692, April.
    20. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    21. Elisa Ughetto, 2008. "Does internal finance matter for R&D? New evidence from a panel of Italian firms," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(6), pages 907-925, November.
    22. Nick Bloom & Stephen Bond & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 391-415.
    23. Audretsch, David B. & Elston, Julie Ann, 2002. "Does firm size matter? Evidence on the impact of liquidity constraints on firm investment behavior in Germany," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    24. Allen N. Berger & Gregory F. Udell, 2002. "Small Business Credit Availability and Relationship Lending: The Importance of Bank Organisational Structure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(477), pages 32-53, February.
    25. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1995. "The Effect of Credit Market Competition on Lending Relationships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 407-443.
    26. Dirk Czarnitzki & Kornelius Kraft, 2004. "Management Control and Innovative Activity," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 24(1), pages 1-24, February.
    27. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 2000. "Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Are Not Valid Measures of Financing Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 707-712.
    28. Bronwyn H. Hall, 1992. "Investment and Research and Development at the Firm Level: Does the Source of Financing Matter?," NBER Working Papers 4096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. David, Paul A. & Hall, Bronwyn H. & Toole, Andrew A., 2000. "Is public R&D a complement or substitute for private R&D? A review of the econometric evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 497-529, April.
    30. Russell Cooper & Joao Ejarque, 2000. "Exhuming Q: Market Power vs. Capital Market Imperfections," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0528, Econometric Society.
    31. Aerts, Kris & Schmidt, Tobias, 2008. "Two for the price of one?: Additionality effects of R&D subsidies: A comparison between Flanders and Germany," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 806-822, June.
    32. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    33. Saul Lach & Rafael Rob, 1996. "R&D, Investment, and Industry Dynamics," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, June.
    34. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Hayashi, Fumio, 1989. "Research and Development as an Investment," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt8br8d266, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    35. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Lerner, Josh, 2010. "The Financing of R&D and Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 609-639, Elsevier.
    36. Michela Bia & Alessandra Mattei, 2008. "A Stata package for the estimation of the dose–response function through adjustment for the generalized propensity score," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(3), pages 354-373, September.
    37. Bayraktar, Nihal & Sakellaris, Plutarchos & Vermeulen, Philip, 2005. "Real versus financial frictions to capital investment," Working Paper Series 2005, European Central Bank.
    38. Bayraktar, Nihal & Sakellaris, Plutarchos & Vermeulen, Philip, 2005. "Real versus financial frictions to capital investment," Working Paper Series 566, European Central Bank.
    39. Xiaoqiang Hu & Fabio Schiantarelli, 1998. "Investment And Capital Market Imperfections: A Switching Regression Approach Using U.S. Firm Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 466-479, August.
    40. James R. Brown & Steven M. Fazzari & Bruce C. Petersen, 2009. "Financing Innovation and Growth: Cash Flow, External Equity, and the 1990s R&D Boom," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 151-185, February.
    41. Spiros Bougheas & Holger Görg & Eric Strobl, 2003. "Is R & D Financially Constrained? Theory and Evidence from Irish Manufacturing," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 22(2), pages 159-174, March.
    42. Robert E. Carpenter & Bruce C. Petersen, 2002. "Is The Growth Of Small Firms Constrained By Internal Finance?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 298-309, May.
    43. Whited, Toni M, 1992. "Debt, Liquidity Constraints, and Corporate Investment: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1425-1460, September.
    44. Giovanni Cerulli, 2010. "Modelling and Measuring the Effect of Public Subsidies on Business R&D: A Critical Review of the Econometric Literature," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(274), pages 421-449, September.
    45. Giorgio Fagiolo & Alessandra Luzzi, 2006. "Do liquidity constraints matter in explaining firm size and growth? Some evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 15(1), pages 1-39, February.
    46. Silvia Magri, 2009. "The financing of small innovative firms: the Italian case," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 181-204.
    47. BIA Michela & FLORES Carlos A. & MATTEI Alessandra, 2011. "Nonparametric Estimators of Dose-Response Functions," LISER Working Paper Series 2011-40, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    48. Dirk Czarnitzki & Georg Licht, 2006. "Additionality of public R&D grants in a transition economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 14(1), pages 101-131, March.
    49. Audretsch, David B. & Elston, Julie Ann, 2002. "Does firm size matter? Evidence on the impact of liquidity constraints on firm investment behavior in Germany," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    50. Néstor Duch-Brown & José García-Quevedo & Daniel Montolio, 2011. "The link between public support and private R&D effort: What is the optimal subsidy?," Working Papers XREAP2011-09, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Jun 2011.
    51. Hanna Hottenrott & Bettina Peters, 2012. "Innovative Capability and Financing Constraints for Innovation: More Money, More Innovation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1126-1142, November.
    52. Steve Bond & Gicoamo Rodano & Nicolas Serrano-Velarde, 2015. "Investment Dynamics in Italy: Financing Constraints, Demand and Uncertainty," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 283, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    53. Fabio Schiantarelli & Alessandro Sembenelli, 2000. "Form of Ownership and Financial Constraints:Panel Data Evidence From Flow of Funds and Investment Equations," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 175-192, June.
    54. Giovanni Cerulli, 2015. "ctreatreg: Command for fitting dose–response models under exogenous and endogenous treatment," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 15(4), pages 1019-1045, December.
    55. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1997. "On two stage least squares estimation of the average treatment effect in a random coefficient model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 129-133, October.
    56. Néstor Duch-Brown & José García-Quevedo & Daniel Montolio, 2011. "The link between public support and private R&D effort: What is the optimal subsidy?," Working Papers XREAP2011-09, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Jun 2011.
    57. Alessandra Canepa & Paul Stoneman, 2008. "Financial constraints to innovation in the UK: evidence from CIS2 and CIS3," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(4), pages 711-730, October.
    58. Aydoḡan Alti, 2003. "How Sensitive Is Investment to Cash Flow When Financing Is Frictionless?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 707-722, April.
    59. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Hussinger, Katrin, 2004. "The Link Between R&D Subsidies, R&D Spending and Technological Performance," ZEW Discussion Papers 04-56, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    60. Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Potì, 2010. "The differential impact of privately and publicly funded R&D on R&D investment and innovation: The Italian case," Working Papers 10, Doctoral School of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome, revised 2010.
    61. Giovanni Cerulli, 2014. "ivtreatreg: A command for fitting binary treatment models with heterogeneous response to treatment and unobservable selection," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 14(3), pages 453-480, September.
    62. J. P. Gould, 1968. "Adjustment Costs in the Theory of Investment of the Firm," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 35(1), pages 47-55.
    63. Carlos Carreira & Filipe Silva, 2010. "No Deep Pockets: Some Stylized Empirical Results On Firms’ Financial Constraints," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 731-753, September.
    64. Schneider, Cedric & Veugelers, Reinhilde, 2008. "On Young Innovative Companies: Why they matter and how (not) to policy support them," Working Papers 04-2008, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    65. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    66. Robert E. Lucas & Jr., 1967. "Adjustment Costs and the Theory of Supply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 321-321.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Potì, 2014. "The Impact of Public Support Intensity on Business R&D: Evidence from a Dose-Response Approach," ERSA conference papers ersa14p625, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Silva Filipe & Carreira Carlos, 2017. "Financial Constraints: Do They Matter to Allocate R&D Subsidies?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 1-26, October.
    3. Hanna Hottenrott & Bettina Peters, 2012. "Innovative Capability and Financing Constraints for Innovation: More Money, More Innovation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1126-1142, November.
    4. Carlos Carreira & Filipe Silva, 2010. "No Deep Pockets: Some Stylized Empirical Results On Firms’ Financial Constraints," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 731-753, September.
    5. Bettina Becker, 2013. "The Determinants of R&D Investment: A Survey of the Empirical Research," Discussion Paper Series 2013_09, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Sep 2013.
    6. Georgios Efthyvoulou & Priit Vahter, 2016. "Financial Constraints, Innovation Performance and Sectoral Disaggregation," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 84(2), pages 125-158, March.
    7. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2012. "Measuring Firms’ Financial Constraints: A Rough Guide," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 36, pages 23-46, December.
    8. Coad, Alex, 2010. "Neoclassical vs evolutionary theories of financial constraints: Critique and prospectus," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 206-218, August.
    9. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2012. "Do financial constraints threat the innovation process? Evidence from Portuguese firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(8), pages 701-736, November.
    10. Segarra Blasco, Agustí, 1958- & Teruel, Mercedes, 2010. "Are small firms more sensitive to financial variables?," Working Papers 2072/151623, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    11. Sarah Demeulemeester & Hanna Hottenrott, 2015. "R&D subsidies and firms' cost of debt," Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven 516028, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven.
    12. José Ángel Zúñiga-Vicente & César Alonso-Borrego & Francisco J. Forcadell & José I. Galán, 2014. "Assessing The Effect Of Public Subsidies On Firm R&D Investment: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 36-67, February.
    13. García-Quevedo, José & Segarra-Blasco, Agustí & Teruel, Mercedes, 2018. "Financial constraints and the failure of innovation projects," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 127-140.
    14. Dirk Czarnitzki & Hanna Hottenrott, 2011. "R&D investment and financing constraints of small and medium-sized firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 65-83, January.
    15. Ugur, Mehmet & Trushin, Eshref, 2018. "Asymmetric information and heterogeneous effects of R&D subsidies: evidence on R&D investment and employment of R&D personel," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 21943, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    16. Jean-Bernard Chatelain, 2003. "Structural modelling of financial constraints on investment: where do we stand?," Chapters, in: Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss (ed.), Firms’ Investment and Finance Decisions, chapter 2, pages 40-58, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Lerner, Josh, 2010. "The Financing of R&D and Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 609-639, Elsevier.
    18. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2012. "Financial Constraints in Intangible Investments: Evidence from Japanese firms," Discussion papers 12045, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. Hottenrott, Hanna & Lopes-Bento, Cindy, 2014. "(International) R&D collaboration and SMEs: The effectiveness of targeted public R&D support schemes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1055-1066.
    20. Manzur Quader & Karl Taylor, 2018. "Corporate efficiency, credit status and investment," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(6), pages 439-457, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    R&D public subsidies; policy evaluation; dose-response models;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:trn:utwprg:2016/09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: roberto.gabriele@unitn.it (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.