How Do Consortia Organize Collaborative R&D? Evidence from the National Cooperative Research Act

Abstract:     
This paper uses contract-level data to present stylized facts about how firms organize collaborative R&D agreements. It finds several dominant modes of collaboration, including outsourcing R&D, specialization and separation of R&D activities, and more integrated learning approaches. It also finds that when consortia participants are direct competitors in existing product markets, they are more likely to outsource their collaborative R&D. The results suggest that many consortia organize to avoid spillovers, and therefore do not achieve the cross-pollination of know-how the National Cooperative Research Act was designed to achieve.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 35

Keywords: Collaborative R&D, Research Joint Ventures, Contracts

JEL Classification: L240, L490, O320

working papers series