Estimating the Productivity of Research and Development: An Exploration of GMM Methods Using Data on French & United States Manufacturing Firms

33 Pages Posted: 10 May 1998 Last revised: 15 Jul 2022

See all articles by Jacques Mairesse

Jacques Mairesse

National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) - Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST); Maastricht University - United Nations and Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Bronwyn H. Hall

University of California at Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

Date Written: March 1996

Abstract

A comparative study of the contribution of R&D to firm-level productivity in French and United States manufacturing firms in the 1980s is presented. The study uses two large panels of approximately 1000 manufacturing firms covering over half of all R&D spending in each country and focuses on the estimation and interpretation of the relationship between output growth and the growth of R&D investment in the presence of simultaneity and firm heterogeneity. We use GMM methods to control for both sources of estimation bias, and we find 1) overall, the contribution of R&D to sales productivity growth appears to have declined during the 1980s, and 2) the role of simultaneity bias is higher in the U.S. than in France, possibly reflecting the greater importance of liquidity constraints for R&D investment in that country.

Suggested Citation

Mairesse, Jacques and Hall, Bronwyn H., Estimating the Productivity of Research and Development: An Exploration of GMM Methods Using Data on French & United States Manufacturing Firms (March 1996). NBER Working Paper No. w5501, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4081

Jacques Mairesse

National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) - Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST) ( email )

15 Boulevard Gabriel Peri
Malakoff Cedex, 1 92245
France

Maastricht University - United Nations and Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)

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6211 TC Maastricht
Netherlands

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Bronwyn H. Hall (Contact Author)

University of California at Berkeley ( email )

549 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
United States

HOME PAGE: http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/bhhall/index.html

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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United States

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

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United Kingdom

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

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Germany