A Reprise of Size and R&D

尺寸和 R 的重演

• 批准号: 9023352
• 负责人: Wesley Cohen
• 金额: $ 6.88万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-02-15 至 1993-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9023352&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Reprise; Size; R&amp

Schumpeter and Galbraith hypothesized that larger firms experience lower costs and greater returns from R&D and as a consequence would be expected to perform a disproportionate share of innovative activity relative to their size. Numerous studies of the relationship between firm size and R&D effort have been conducted. The findings are that within the modal industry, above a modest size threshold, R&D effort does not rise proportionally with firm size. Having apparently failed to support the Schumpeterian hypothesis, however, these stylized facts have been largely ignored. Initially assuming that firms exploit their innovations through their own sales and that growth due to innovation is conditioned by current output, this project uses a simple model to explain these stylized facts. The model is then used to explain observed departures from the modal relationships as well. The objective is to explain how industry factors - particularly dynamic factors and appropriability mechanisms within industries -- condition the relationship between firm size and R&D. Using data from the Federal Trade Commission's Line of Business Program, patent data compiled from Scherer and data from the Levin et al. survey on technological opportunity and appropriability conditions in U.S. manufacturing industries, the model is tested to see if the correctly postulated factors that condition the relationship have been specified. The model used in the project provides a distinctive interpretation of the proportional relationship betweeen R&D effort and firm size among R&D performers. In the past, proportionality has been widely interpreted to indicate that there are no particular advantages or disadvantages of size in R&D. In this model, however, the proportional relationship reflects the link between the expected returns from R&D and the firm's ex ante output. It suggests that larger firms will earn greater returns from any given R&D effort than smaller firms, implying an advantage of size and R&D. Thus, the stylized fact that led to the rejection of the Schumpeterian hypothesis, namely the proportional relationship between R&D effort and firm size, may actually reveal an advantage of size. An important implication of the argument is that the returns to innovation are an increasing function of firm size, implying an advantage to firm size in R&D.

熊彼特和加尔布雷思假设，规模较大的公司的研发成本较低，回报较高，因此预计其创新活动的份额与其规模不成比例。人们对企业规模和研发努力之间的关系进行了大量研究。 研究结果表明，在模态行业内，在适度的规模阈值之上，研发工作并不与公司规模成比例地增加。然而，这些典型的事实显然未能支持熊彼特假说，因此在很大程度上被忽视了。最初假设企业通过自己的销售来利用创新，并且创新带来的增长受到当前产出的制约，该项目使用一个简单的模型来解释这些程式化的事实。然后该模型也用于解释观察到的模态关系的偏离。目的是解释行业因素——尤其是行业内的动态因素和专有机制——如何影响企业规模和研发之间的关系。使用来自联邦贸易委员会业务线计划的数据、Scherer 编译的专利数据以及 Levin 等人的数据。 在对美国制造业的技术机会和专有条件进行的调查中，对该模型进行了测试，以查看是否指定了正确假设的影响这种关系的因素。 该项目中使用的模型对研发人员的研发努力与公司规模之间的比例关系提供了独特的解释。过去，比例性被广泛解释为表明研发规模没有特别的优势或劣势。然而，在该模型中，比例关系反映了研发的预期回报与公司事前产出之间的联系。它表明，较大的公司将从任何特定的研发工作中获得比较小的公司更大的回报，这意味着规模和研发的优势。因此，导致熊彼特假说被拒绝的典型事实，即研发努力与企业规模之间的比例关系，实际上可能揭示了规模优势。该论点的一个重要含义是，创新回报是企业规模的递增函数，这意味着企业规模在研发方面具有优势。