Data, data origin and data quality

Almost all industrialized countries have set up support schemes to foster private Research & Development (R&D) activities. However, only little is known on which programs are exactly applied, how much money is spent and whether such programs work in the way they were originally intended. Reliable evaluation studies that allow identifying causal effects can help to clarify if and how these policies work and for which policy schemes the results are promising. This kind of research design, however, places high demands on the quality of data. Against this backdrop, researchers at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) - Member of the Leibniz Association systematically collected a number of different datasets including information on granted R&D projects in Germany. Using comprehensive and complex procedures, these datasets have been harmonized and linked with datasets containing information on firm-specific characteristics of the recipients (and the non-recipients as well). This technical report provides an overview on the IWH R&D Micro Database, the support schemes included and its variables. Moreover, the harmonization routines are described.