Vincent Van Roy

Academic research strengths and multinational firms’ foreign R&D location decisions: evidence from R&D investments in European regions

Although an expanding literature on university–industry linkages has suggested that proximity to academia can increase the innovative performance of firms, the role of academic research in the R&D location choices of multinational firms has received surprisingly little attention. In this paper we analyze the extent to which academic research in host regions of EU-15 countries attracts R&D investments by multinational firms. We analyze the determinants of the location of 394 multinational R&D projects in NUTS-1 regions of EU-15 countries during the period 2003–08. We construct precise measures of the academic research strengths of regions from annual publication data from Thomson Reuters Web of Science. University publications are counted at the level of regions and science fields, and measure academic research relevant for investing firms by linking science fields to the industries in which firms are active. We find that the probability of R&D projects being located in a host region is positively affected by the host regions academic strength—after controlling for industry agglomeration, the technological strength of the region, R&D tax incentives, and other characteristics of host locations. Our results further suggest that a major mechanism through which academic research attracts foreign R&D is the supply of PhD graduates.

Academic Research Strengths and Multinational Firms’ Foreign R&D Location Decisions: Evidence from Foreign R&D Projects in European Regions

Although an expanding literature on university-industry linkages has suggested that proximity to academia can increase the innovative performance of firms, the role of academic research in the R&D location choices by multinational firms has received surprisingly little attention. In this paper we analyze to what extent academic research in host regions of EU-15 countries attracts R&D investments by multinational firms. We analyze the determinants of the location of 394 multinational R&D projects in NUTS-1 regions of EU-15 countries during the period 2003-2008. We construct precise measures of the academic research strengths of regions by using annual WoS publication data. We count university publications at the level of regions and science fields, and measure relevant publications for investing firms by linking science fields to the industry that firms are active in. We find that the probability to locate R&D projects in a host region is positively affected by the host region’s academic strength - after controlling for industry agglomeration, the technological strength of the region, R&D tax incentives, and other characteristics of host locations. Our results further suggest that in addition to providing knowledge spillovers, a major mechanism through which academic research attracts foreign R&D is the supply of graduates with a PhD.

Innovation and Employment in Patenting Firms: Empirical Evidence from Europe

This paper explores the possible job creation effect of innovation activity. We analyze a unique panel dataset covering almost 20,000 patenting firms from Europe over the period 2003-2012. The main outcome from the proposed GMM-SYS estimations is the labour-friendly nature of innovation, which we measure in terms of forward-citation weighted patents. However, this positive impact of innovation is statistically significant only for firms in the high-tech manufacturing sectors, while not significant in low-tech manufacturing and services.

The Job-Creation Effect of Patents: Some Evidence from European Microdata

This paper explores the possible job creation effect of innovation activity. We analyze a unique panel dataset covering almost 20,000 patenting firms from Europe over the period 2003-2012. The main outcome from the proposed GMM-SYS estimations is the labour-friendly nature of innovation, which we measure in terms of forward-citation weighted patents. However, this positive impact of innovation is statistically significant only for firms in the high-tech manufacturing sectors, while not significant in low-tech manufacturing and services.