Hubert Strauss

Do Spillovers Matter When Estimating Private Returns to R&D?

A large body of literature estimates private returns to R&D adopting the Griliches knowledge production framework which ignores the potential impact of spillovers on consistent estimation. Using a panel of 12 manufacturing industries across ten OECD economies, we investigate whether ignoring spillovers leads to bias in the estimated private returns to R&D. We compare results from a common factor framework, which accounts for spillovers and other unobserved shocks, to those from a standard Griliches approach. Our findings confirm that conventional estimates conflate own-R&D and spillover effects, implying that spillovers cannot be ignored even when the interest lies exclusively in evaluating private returns to R&D.

The Policy Determinants of Investment in Tertiary Education

RÉSUMÉ .................................................................................................................................. 2 THE POLICY DETERMINANTS OF INVESTMENT IN TERTIARY EDUCATION............................... 5

Business R&D Expenditure and Capital in Europe

This study presents new estimates of business R&D capital stocks for 22 countries at the aggregate and industry levels. At 9 percent of GDP, the EU business R&D capital stock falls short of its US and Japanese counterparts. Within the EU, R&D capital stocks are much lower in the southern and the new member states, reflecting large and persistent disparities in R&D expenditure. There was hardly any convergence over the past decade. The R&D capital stock is concentrated on three technologyintensive manufacturing industries and is positively correlated with growth in total factor productivity across countries and industries. Finally, the ratios between the stocks of R&D capital and tangible capital suggest marked differences in how R&D and tangible capital are combined in production.

La prime salariale pour l'éducation supérieure

Cette etude presente des estimations transversales de la prime salariale horaire brute pour l’education superieure qui reposent sur un cadre harmonise pour 21 pays de l’OCDE entre les annees 90 et le debut des annees 2000. L’etude est basee sur des enquetes internationales aupres des menages afin de maximiser la comparaison entre pays. L’ « extension » des equations salariales de Mincer donne comme resultat une prime salariale horaire moyenne brute a l’achevement d’un diplome d’education superieure de 55% en 2001 (en moyenne pour les hommes et les femmes pour tous les pays), ce qui est equivalent a pres de 11% par annee d’education superieure. Les primes salariales varient peu au cours du temps mais de maniere significative a travers les pays : les plus faibles sont en Grece et en Espagne a 6% (hommes et femmes) ainsi qu’en Autriche et en Italie (femmes) alors qu’elles atteignent 14%-18% en Hongrie, au Portugal et dans la plupart des pays anglo-saxons. Etant donne que la prime salariale est le determinant le plus important du rendement prive de l’education superieure, les resultats peuvent avoir des implications importantes pour les politiques visant l’augmentation du stock de capital humain.This study focuses on the single most important component of the private return on tertiary education, the gross wage premium. There are at least two additional reasons for paying particular attention to wage premia. First, the wage premium earned by existing graduates is easy to observe, so high-school leavers can be assumed to take it into account when deciding for or against enrolment in tertiary education. Second, to the extent that wages reflect marginal labour productivity, estimates of wage premia are sometimes used to assess the quality of human capital in an economy with a view to correcting simpler measures based on years of schooling or attainment levels.