Firm Size and R&D Intensity: A Re-Examination

Wesley M. Cohen, Richard C. Levin, David C. Mowery

NBER Working Paper No. 2205
Issued in March 1987
NBER Program(s):   PR

Using data from the Federal Trade Commission's Line of Business Program and survey measures of technological opportunity and appropriability conditions, this paper finds that overall firm size has a very small, statistically in- significant effect on business unit R & D intensity when either fixed industry effects or measured industry characteristics are taken into account. Business unit size has no effect on the R & D intensity of business units that perform R & D, but it affects the probability of conducting R & D. Business unit and firm size jointly explain less than one per cent of the variance in R & D intensity; industry effects explain nearly half the variance.

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Published: Cohen, Wesley M., Richard C. Levin and David C. Mowery. "Firm Size and R&D Intensity: A Re-Examination," Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol. XXXV, No. 4, June 1987, pp. 543-565.

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