Analyzing the determinants of R&D, its impact on productivity and efficiency of firms in the Turkish manufacturing industry

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Bilim ve Teknoloji Politikası Çalışmaları Anabilim Dalı, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2012

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Öğrenci: ELİF KALAYCI

Danışman: Mehmet Teoman Pamukcu

Özet:

This dissertation consists of three papers revolving around economics of R&D. The first paper analyzes the determinants of R&D expenditures with specific focus on foreign ownership and spillovers; the second paper studies the impact of R&D on productivity and the third paper analyzes whether conducting R&D enables Turkish manufacturing firms to catch up with sector leaders as far as their productivity levels are concerned. The first contribution of the thesis is the use of newly available data from Turkish Institute of Statistics (Turkstat). Two different surveys are matched at the firm level for the years 2003-2007. The second contribution is the employment of a new methodology: Heckman two-stage procedure with instrumental variables for panel data. The third contribution is collection of qualitative data via interviews with R&D performing firms. Foreign ownership has no statistically significant effect on R&D intensity. Foreign knowledge spillovers exert a negative effect on R&D, but in time their effect becomes positive. R&D subsidies and skill affect R&D intensity positively while size influences it negatively. The effect of R&D and skill on productivity is positive and significant. The effect of R&D on technical efficiency is negative but knowledge spillovers exert a positive effect on technical efficiency.