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The Effect of Government R&D Incentives on International R&D Trade

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Part of the book series: International Studies in Entrepreneurship ((ISEN,volume 32))

Abstract

In the past years, the awareness of the importance of business research and development for the economy has grown significantly. In order to encourage businesses to conduct R&D, governments are increasingly providing tax incentives or grants. To date, most literature has focused on proving the efficiency of these incentives, while their impact on international trade in R&D services has been largely ignored so far. Conducting an empirical analysis, this paper finds that R&D incentives have opposing, time variant effects on international R&D trade. The results indicate that government decisions on R&D incentives should also take the scale of R&D incentives of its major trade partners into consideration.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For Canada: Department of Finance Canada (2011) and earlier versions; United States: IRS (2014); Australia: Australian Department of Industry (2012) and earlier versions.

  2. 2.

    USA: U.S. Department of Commerce – Bureau of Economic Analysis (2012); Australia and Canada: OECD.StatExtracts (2013).

  3. 3.

    The OECD provides aggregated data on BERD funded by governments, foreign sources or other national sources.

  4. 4.

    For Canada: CANSIM (2013a); United States: National Science Foundation (2008); Australia: OECD iLibrary (2013).

  5. 5.

    The OECD publishes annual data on international trade in services. In some cases this data can be disaggregated to imports and exports of R&D.

  6. 6.

    Australia: OECD iLibrary (2013); United States: U.S. Department of Commerce – Bureau of Economic Analysis (2013); Canada: CANSIM (2013b).

  7. 7.

    GDP deflators are derived from the ratio of the gross domestic product in current and real terms; Sources: Canada (CANSIM 2013c); Australia: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013); United States: OECD.StatExtracts (2013).

  8. 8.

    The data is a collection of the following sources: Canada: Industry Canada (2011); Australia: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013); United States: Bureau of Economic Analysis (2013).

  9. 9.

    Adding more information of price and GDP weakens the significance of government support. Still, the dynamic impact of government support on R&D trade remains the same.

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Correspondence to M. Baumann .

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Bachmann, C., Baumann, M. (2016). The Effect of Government R&D Incentives on International R&D Trade. In: Audretsch, D., Lehmann, E., Meoli, M., Vismara, S. (eds) University Evolution, Entrepreneurial Activity and Regional Competitiveness. International Studies in Entrepreneurship, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17713-7_19

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