earticle

영어

This paper empirically examines the effects of R&D investment on productivity for Korea's listed and registered manufacturing companies using financial data over the period 2001-2016. It also examines size effects of R&D investment on conditional distribution of productivity. Empirical results show, first, for all firms and models, R&D investment is positively associated with productivity on average, which implies that the larger the R&D investment is, the higher the productivity is. However, quantile regression results show different from those of traditional regression. The R&D investment effects on productivity are the largest at 75 percent quantile in the conditional distribution of productivity for all sample firms; the largest effects at the higher end of the productivity distribution for the small and medium sized firms, but at the lowest end for the large firms. This implies that government R&D subsidy can have a stronger effect on productivity at the higher quantile of the productivity distribution for small and medium sized firms. This confirms that R&D investment should be a highly significant factor in enhancing firms’ competitiveness and thus should be essential sources of economic growth. Next, they show that on average, previous exports are positively associated with labor productivity for all firms, implying that the larger the exports of firms are, the higher the productivity is. However, quantile regression results are substantially different. The productivity effects of exporting are the largest at the lowest quantile in the conditional distribution of productivity for all firms. This implies that government export promotion programs would have a stronger effect on productivity at the lower quantile of the distribution for all sample firms but at the higher quantile for small and medium sized enterprises.