R&D Cooperation and Spillovers: Some Empirical Evidence

Our results on the relationship between R&D spillovers and cooperation in R&D suggest that it is necessary to distinguish different aspects of external information flows. We construct firm-specific measures of incoming spillovers and appropriability from survey data on Belgian manufacturing firms. Incoming spillovers measure the importance of publicly available information for the innovation process of the firm. Appropriability is defined as the effectiveness of several protection mechanisms for appropriating the benefits of successful innovations. The decision to cooperate with research institutes is mainly affected by the level of incoming spillovers, while appropriability plays an important role for cooperating with suppliers or customers. Furthermore, we analyze what determines the levels of incoming spillovers and appropriability, including a possible simultaneous relation with cooperative agreements in R&D.