Cooperation or non-cooperation in R&D: how should research be funded?

This article investigates two research funding policies in a cooperative and a non-cooperative R&D setting: subsidising private research (Spr) and subsidising public research (Spu). We show that R&D cooperation with subsidies (either Spr or Spu) always performs better than R&D cooperation with no subsidy. Furthermore, the Spr policy leads to better performance than the Spu approach does in terms of overall net surplus whether the rms cooperate or not in R&D. Nevertheless, comparing the two research funding policies for the same level of public spending shows that the Spu policy with R&D cooperation is in some cases more eective than the Spr policy, the latter becoming too costly for the government when spillovers are high.